Reincarnation

It seems that every few years, I tear everything up and start all over again. I've lived a number of lives, I've been different people but underneath it all, the same guy. Virginia, Georgia, Florida and now Louisiana. Adaptability, that's the key I suppose.

A Woman Is Like a Fish...

Because you will always talk,
when the subject comes up (as you know it will) about the one that got away,
just like all fishermen and lovers do
and you will always keep trying to land one greater
and you will always find yourself straining to see her in the melancholy eyes of timid store clerks and uncertain artists that stab indecisively with gazelle-like arms at canvasses larger than their diminutive egos.

And you will spend days and years
or more likely, a lifetime
just like all great fishermen and writers do
in constantly expressing that feeling of loss
while searching for words and metaphors to describe
that never-ending need to sleep next to someone
who will remind you of her
but never will never quite be her
because there is only one catch of a lifetime.

Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead

Because this just fits for right now. I hope to not look back.

Time to settle up

I'm afraid of those moments when the sound and color becomes muted. You know, when everything just runs together in a pathetic, bland stream of daily life. Those times when you're working just to get by and all the fun is gone. I'm terrified of when the lights begin to dim and it's time for us all to go home as you know we all will have to eventually. Last call comes whether you want it to or not, one last drink, say goodnight. Try to stagger home with that girl you met, try to say what she wants to hear because you don't want to be alone again. You have to give it a shot not so much because you want to get laid, it's because you're terrified of the passing days on the calendar.
It goes on and on and on until one day you wake up alone in a strange place with nothing but a hangover and an empty wallet. It's the realization that all of this ends sooner or later, the party dies down eventually and you don't want to be the last one clinging onto the tapped out keg. You can only hang on for so long, you can only drink away the memories, mistakes and regrets until you kill your liver or realize that you have to face them at some point, somehow.
You have to pay the piper eventually. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Everything, all the fun of the past 6 years has finally come to an end and now I have to pay the tab. I wouldn't trade most of it for the world.

I miss the road (8/2007)

I miss the all-night drives through the snow to DC, have a few drinks and then turning around and trying to drive all the way back. I could do that then, we were crazy kids, dreamers of everything and kings of it all. I miss Waffle House after a long night of drinking, discussing our literary idols over coffee and hashbrowns, there was nowhere we couldn't go.

I remember flights across the country, just because we could, and the band was going to be playing. I miss pint after pint and stumbling down the streets of places I'd never been at 3am. It was fun, having people mistake me for a member of the band and the resulting attempts to convince them that I wasn't. Ok, except for when one really fat girl tried to molest me in The Slacker's hotel room, that was just bizarre. Yes, the girls were a great part of it, being young and single had it's advantages. They still come around, but now I can't do anything and they're all very, very young. It's changed, alot. It used to be mostly adults, the cool people who were in the know. Do you recall how it used to be that when you ran into someone else who was wearing a Flogging Molly shirt, chances are you were about to make a new friend, or at least a drinking partner for the night.

I remember pints at "The Big Hunt" and strange fans who were really nice, but probably Mafia connected. Who cared really and honestly you never knew when you'd meet someone in an unexpected place and go have a few drinks before the show with Mexican food. It seemed as if I could fish all day, drink all night and get up the next day to do it all over again.

I miss the road and watching all those miles disappear behind me. Just a little beatup station wagon, full of fishing poles, off for the next great adventure. I wish I had copies of the snapshots in my head that I could use to illustrate what I'm recalling, I really do. Sometimes, if I'd had the money, I would have kept on going, kept on driving until the wheels fell off. I saw alot of the country in that time, from the road and from the air. Many of the people in the town where I came from never had seen that much in their lives.

It's come to end, at least for now. I've made some decisions in the past couple years that I wish I could undo, but there's no going back. The priorities have been changed, but I can't wait to hit the road. I did get the chance to fly a couple months back. It was up to Virginia to meet Lori and then we drove all the way back down to Orlando. It was an interesting trip since the entire drive was over road I've covered before in my journeys. It was like going back and catching just a glimpse.

Seattle, Portland, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Norfolk, Atlanta, just a few of the places I've been. I miss the road, alot.

Timeless

I want to be the dirt under the fingernails, the crack in your fucking heart that never heals. You know what I mean, that itch that you can never reach or make go away. For the people who have written me off, yet can't shake the memory or the longing, I will always haunt you in those places you least expect. I will be a life-long spectre that rises to meet you in lonely, smoke-filled bars and down the lonely alleyways of your existence. For the rest of your life, that memory will always be at the back of your mind, no matter how great the distance becomes.

Sometimes I believe in vengeance and sometimes I believe that the universe will work everything out in the end. I have taken my lashes for my sins, fully realizing the consequences of my actions. I call it a learning experience, I have paid for my iniquities a thousand times over. I have done my time in hell.

Don't take it so personally, it's just life

It all seems so long ago. It was another world, a seemingly parallel universe that has gone it's own direction, completely inaccessible from where I am now. There's still enough to remember it all by, a way to recall midnight suicide runs and the feeling, the invincibility of youth.

            We would never grow old, we would never sell out, and we would never settle for a common existence like so many other people.

            I suppose one could assume that when you're going to be when other people are waking for another 9 to 5 and driving their kids to school. "It's Saturday so this must be Norfolk", noon hangover cures at Waffle House, let's start drinking again. Some say alcohol blurs or dims the memory, for me, it helps paint a vivid recollection of exact places and times. Four pints in, arm in arm, singing as if your very life depended on the sheer volume of your exhilaration.

            Slowly, but surely, the doubt sets in. Not at first of course, because the new road seems so bright early on, but eventually the novelty is replaced by the shadows of discontent. Some say that the new path is a sign of maturity, when did maturity become a consolation prize? Is the grass actually greener where the sheep you once mocked feed in seeming content? Is it really possible to have the best of both worlds? There's only one way to find out. If it doesn't work out, there really isn't any coming back. Once you descend, your wings are gone and your fate is set, there is no return.

            For those that can remember those days that are gone forever, every day life is torture. The certainty and security that other people live for, is the monster under the bed that keeps me awake at night. Give it time, it becomes a lifetime. Give it a try and before you know it, the beatnik howl has been deadened to a muted whimper.

            Turn on the autopilot, close your eyes, the rest of course is predictable, it's best not to wake up before you hit the wall at the end. It's easier this way, if you can suppress the memories of the way things used to be.

            There is no escape now, resistance is futile. The harder you fight it, the tighter the noose becomes, the more the bonds chafe. It isn't about you anymore, so don't take it personally, 'tis the nature of the beast. It is what it is, nothing more, nothing less than what you've settled for.

The future is unwritten

There are some days, more so now than before, when you can lose yourself in the memories of times past. If you do it just right, you can close your eyes and go through the motions of your usual daily routine almost without thinking.
It's the point when your life has become a book, and the present is more like the end of the story when the author has run out of ideas or room to take the plot further. You are the author reading back and looking for new ideas, new twists, somewhere to go next because you haven't even made the minimum word count. This will be graded, I am my own worst critic. Answer this, is it the end of the line, or the interlude between the end of one journey and the beginning of another? Are you Christopher Columbus at the conclusion of voyage one, or are you facing the impending twilight with the memories as the only thing you can take with you?
I like to think of this as a brief respite from the action before the next adventure begins. I don't know where, when or how but it has to come. The options with their resulting variables and consequences have begun to be weighed and measured. The initial decision is in the hands of fate, once the gavel comes down, the new path must be chosen.