I have danced delicately in the grip of attractively damaged devils. And I have kissed the naked secrets of more freckled angels.
I have played endlessly with big words. And even bigger guns. But eventually, I discovered that the words were far more damaging. Because a gun means unequivocally what it says. It rifles true in the world of pure absolutes. Whereas the whispered language of part-time lovers is often too unpredictable. And can’t ever be properly targeted in more responsible fashion.
I am guilty of that obfuscation myself; I have never once said it plain before. It has always been easier to hide behind the clever wordplay. Lurking on the literary periphery of acceptable behaviors. Because I have learned through the errors of my trials that that is where foxes are condemned to scavenge best.
Even though everything else is the worst.
But the simple truth is…I am dying here in Michigan.
Every tin monster I fight off the ramp robs seconds from my life. Every drink that I down poisons me just a little bit more. But sometimes, it’s refreshing to not have to feel anything. And I have addictively come to embrace that poured numbness of nothingness on the regular.
Even when the bank account howls at the harshness of those high-proof transactions. The ones echoing the rumblings of an artist literally starving for his craft. That misplaced misfit surrounded nightly by engines of bladed metal that spool and whine.
And sometimes catch fire.
But somehow, that broken heart underneath it all still somehow whimpers and moans the loudest, here amongst all the other shuffling 517 purgatorial zombies.
And I just can’t seem to break that cycle of repetition.
But then, I have to remind myself that I am nothing special.
I am nothing more than a dilapidated tin-kicking caricature of an imposter. The one actually incapable of love. And of being loved. Because foxes are terminally condemned to the singularity of isolation. That is simply the more feral virtue of their wild natures.
And no amount of clever writing is ever going to change that indisputable fact.
Maybe that is why I constantly hurt myself in ways I could never properly explain to politely inquisitive strangers. They would never understand that at least it is a damage I can comprehend. And that inexplicably adds some sense of definition to a wandering vagabond existence. That broken creature out of his head elements. The one condemned to forever dance in dangerous traffic drifting down that dirty Boulevard.
Because there remains an insurmountable disparity between the two extremes of my existence. That echoing, shameful gap between what I so desperately crave, and what precious little I actually have.
And there is a constant compulsion to fill that inequity with something.
So I make the rounds. Take parting shots with intimate strangers. Bleed nightly onto polished chrome. When not occupied kissing green glass. Or choking on jet blast.
Always caught cashing out. Or punching in. Just risking it all on broken Clinton County concrete. Or another morning spent sleeping rough out along the river.
Because what the fuck else am I going to do?
I have heard a lot of different songs in my five decades of winters. I partied to the thumping soundtracks of some. And raged raw with the pulsing beats of others.
But only one ever really got it right. And made me want to steal the lyrics. Because they are magic. And actually capture the inexplicable.
Because…
