Sure I can accept that we're going nowhere, but one last time lets go there...

Whenever I think of you, I think of how I felt around you. It's selfish, I know, but you made me feel deserving. Just one touch and look from you makes my barriers fall away and suddenly I'm a soft center with no shell to hold me up. I'd give up everything that I've built (including my mask) and go into the poor-house for you. We may not have had much, but we had each other.

Remember that frozen moment, sitting on the bumper of some stranger's car, I told you that I wanted you even though I'd never wanted another man that way before. You stood there with the streetlight behind you and the snow falling down around your shoulders. I felt warmer than a mid-summer's day in Nogales.

I have all the money and stuff that I need, but I don't want it if it means I cannot feel that way again.

You don't have to say you love me...

So tell me, why am I doing this? I don't even seem to know.

There was a picture online that reminded me of him. Not "he" him, but some ideal state of him for me. You know, "him," that guy that I used to see when I was in my teens. Whenever I'd close my eyes, he'd be there and I would feel this warm glow radiating from my chest to my toes.

He was always just a shadowed figure passing in front of a spotlight. But I could fill in the image with my own collage of all that is right with man. Broad shoulders and a strong, masculine chest that I could bury my insecurities in. Brown or silver curly hair, I really couldn't tell. Eyes, green or hazel... maybe even blue. A hint of stubble around soft yet strong lips.

I would rebuild the image each time he'd come to me, but none were as perfect the real life that I'd not even seen yet.

Here You Come Again...

....just when I'd begun to get my life together.

When we were together, even just as friends at first, I felt so safe with you. I loved your outlook on life. You just wanted to try everything, do everything, go everywhere. I would have gone anywhere with you.

It's been years since you and I were together. After you broke it off to explore, I did so many things to try to get you back. I begged, I plotted, I attempted to make you jealous. In your typical manner, you just shrugged it off.

So, I went out and made something of myself. I got a better job, finished school, and tried to forget about you. In the back of my mind, I kept hoping that you would just come back and tell me that you couldn't make it without me.

Now you show up again, just to be friends, but I know that's not enough for me. It's all or nothing, baby.

You do something to me that I cant explain...

"He doesn't look well," I think. But it's not unwell in a mental way that you claim. Something else is going on that he dare not speak of. I started the evening wanting an apology, but soon realized it wasn't coming and nor was it important. Now I feel sadness and, dare I say it, pity.

Regardless, it's been a sad day from before it started. I awoke with a dream of someone I'd wronged. In the dream, he forgave me, but in life he's gone. We slipped through each others lives as silently as my seed through your fingers.

I'd wanted him from the moment we met in high school, and he the same, but we just never knew until it was too late. By the time we'd acted upon it, our paths were already diverging; mine into the thick and yours off into a valley of sunshine and rainbows. Did he ever find that pot of gold? I really hope so...he deserves it.

My mind is in a fog from mixing my drinks as momma warned me not to. Now I look for traces of them on the net, but I realize that this Orpheus has turned around too late.

I'm the winner of cards I can't play...

"Fuckin' A," I said as I threw away the last of my little. yellow. indifferent.

13 (Lucky) years ago, I vowed that I was done. The simultaneous chipping away of my mask; my mind. They were only partially-responsible for my heart trouble. A good scape-goat nonetheless. I swore the pills off. And when sanity returned all else came crashing down like a Paris Opera House chandelier.

Had my prescription-altered mood drove the sun away? Or was it sucked away by an ill-timed blow job from his home-town friend?

That pain cannot be matched by hours under knives, needles, lasers, drills, and various forms of torture as they constructed my new mask. Still, sometimes as I look into the mirror for some resemblance of my old self, underneath -- I can`t help by feel ugly.

My yesterdays are all boxed up and neatly put away...

Sometimes it only takes a date, a smell, a word, a building, or a car to bring me back.  Something as simple as Thanksgiving causes me to flash back to my first year without my family.  

Ten years ago, the matriarch of the family was lying in a hospital bed dying slowly.  She was my constant, my support system, and I couldn't reach out to her. Many of my friends had all but ditched me.  I had always been the clown, the joker, the rock for them to lean on, but when needed help after a bad breakup with an abusive asshole and a hit with a serious family illness, they didn't like the sad clown -- I brought them down and they could have none of that.  

I started dating this guy, nothing serious yet, but a balanced version of me as I saw it; mature, calm, cool, confident, yet distant.  I wasn't comfortable in my own skin, but somehow he was fine with that.  He would just hold me. I didn't talk about what was going on in my life at home, but he somehow knew what to do without being asked.  No family to turn to, he created a family of friends for me to spend the holidays with. It was beautiful and warm...and when the day was done, he took me home and just held me.  I couldn't tell him what was going on, but his arms were open.  In the morning, he'd leave, and a few months later, he'd not come back.

I'm beginning to think that some people were meant to serve as a walk-on cameo in the story of our lives.  

You say go slow I fall behind...

Just a thought: You with the silver rimmed glasses, dark hair, and shy smile. Thanks for making my day this weekend. I noticed you noticing and it made me remember what it felt like to be that young, giddy child again.

On occasion, I think back to me in my late teens and wish I could be that bright-eyed and optimistic again. Time after time

I'll keep you locked in my head...

That filthy bastard did it again.   He tried to discount everything he said to delusions.

Feeling a bit High and Mighty? Well, yes, I`m calling it -- Bull Shit. You. god. damned. Fuckwit.

Some have asked what the story was. Well, here's the gist of it: Fell in love, was promised the world, changed the path of my life to meet his, then when I was hooked -- he cheated, I was stupid and forgave, then he did it again and again, I forgave, then he dumped me, I cried, then a couple of years later he came back around to tell me he'd grown and he strung me along for a couple of years long-distance, then he backed off when I finally agreed to take things seriously again.  

Almost 10 years of cat and mouse and I was fucking exhausted.  Now I'm stuck in a rut that I can't get out of, because I can't seem to make myself feel the euphoria of the first time we met.  I've been desperately seeking that feeling, that confidence in myself, and I just can't seem to grab on to it. 

I'd like to put things on rewind and start back 14 years ago, but now I just feel like a fool. That's it. A fucking fool.

This is the land of a thousand words, but it seems so few are worth the breath to say...

It was late in the summer before I turned twenty and I remember him fondly -- Golden crew-cut and mischievous blue eyes. He was my little southern peach; fuzzy and sweet in all the right places.

I would drive 75 miles in the dark just to curl up in his arms and try to forget. He knew I wasn't available yet, but still he hoped and kept patient.

The boy didn't deserve what happened, I was just too broken then to be with someone else; I was still thinking of you. Why did I let you do that to me?

It's wonderful that he and I can now look back and laugh and it seems he's right where I left him. Time can heal all wounds, that is, if you treat them.

I never made promises lightly and there have been some that I've broken...

October hits the hardest -- Unraveling trees in brisk nights. I am reminded of the coldest night that started it all.

Reminded is an understatement; I'm brought right back to that evening as if time has folded in on itself. Walking, dazed down Main Street -- alone and barely clothed in torn jeans and a t-shirt. I was only 17, and I was invincible. I kept looking back at traffic, hoping someone would stop and give me a ride the rest of the way home.

Someone did.

I can see my breath in sputtering bursts as childhood escaped me. No one warned me that autumn could unravel a young man too.

I'm sorry for blaming you...

At 17, I fell in love with love and it has been one hell of a ride since.

It used to be that a voice on the wire could sustain me longer than bread and water. This was evident from my emaciated frame and constant look of hope.

By all written accounts, mostly contained in green denim, I was a scared child clinging to dreams made real by Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan. I believed the fairytale and lost my sense of self.

That strangers didn`t slap the stars from my eyes amazes me still -- Momma tried. Her stars had fallen years prior and she knew their burn. I ignored Momma and ran. Only my stars were stolen.

Too young to enter into contract, but playground promises are binding. Love is the only true indian-giver and ours was no exception. Now no one can own me and I remember everything but your voice.

You cut me open and I...

I can still remember the look on his face. "This is not the end," he said holding a gothic cross and tissue in one hand and my hand in the other. Those words comfort nothing these days.

"You`re going to leave," I insisted, "it is in my cards."

The deck was stacked for naught; it was only a dream...it was only a dream --née a hallucination.

Dreams, exactly where I left them cloud judgment at every passing. We used to speak in dreams.

The number on the matchbook is old and faded...

I don't know why I bother to think about those who left. They left for some reason.. namely me.

For years I was too available. I fell for the man who could make me feel different. Different from what it was that I'd felt in the past. I fell for some bozos. I'll just put them out there (minus the first): Don, Tripp, Tom, Jeff, Tim, Seth, Steve, Tom, Matt, Mick, Dan, Chris, Todd, Jeff, Eric, Mathias, Scott, Ryan, Jon, Stephen... Oh, It's not even worth mentioning.

To be fair, some of them were left by me, and most of them were hardly a fall, they were more of a stumble or knock on the shin...but they all hurt in various levels of pain. None so bad as the first, but they still hurt. Well, except for a couple of those momentary lapses in judgment. That seems to happen a lot.

I loved his secret places but I can't go anymore...

Sometimes a lyric gets stuck in my head that I can't seem to shake. It's been months since I cried and tonight as I drove around town, one song reduced me to tears.

Have you ever had a song that resonated so much that you thought it was written by your evil twin in an attempt to crush you? That's the way this one hit me tonight. I came home and hopped in the shower; no matter how hard I scrubbed, I couldn't shake the feeling of being unclean, impure.

It's that one night all over again, but this time without the strong hand on my back, scotch-infused breathe on my ear, and northern wind on my back. Yes, it does get "so fucking cold."

All the flowers that you planted...

There was this one guy, let's call you Sneaker. You made me feel normal, called me on my crap, and pulled me into your world. But only for a couple of months. You were broken when I found you. I thought I would be able to help you find all of your pieces, but it turns out you were looking for those pieces in everyone else.

You left me and town, but it was because you loved me, you told me. Fucker. I'm broken now thanks to many things, but wish you could help me glue the pieces back together. There's one piece missing and I think you have it.

So do I look for that piece elsewhere? I can live without it, but don't really want to. I guess I keep looking.

I walk alone...

So tonight, as I sit here with my bourbon on the rocks, I reflect on what might have been. My past presents itself in a dream-like swirl of booze and the rain evaporating off of hot asphalt.

:10 years back:

Naked against a stranger’s pillow, I wondered where I lost my soul and then decided it must have been somewhere after the fifth trick. Did some predator devour it in a moment of rapture? Or was it simply wiped up in some towel and discarded with the rest of my indiscretion for that evening? An idea I find most troubling.

My name is merely an expletive that is cried out in the throes of passion. He had no right to my real name, as his name means nothing more to me than any other: Dan, Tom, Mick, Jeff, Matt, they all began to sound the same. Not a one a gentleman; They didn’t even let me come first.

Looking back, I am quite aware that there was never a picture of "us" with him or any of these men. Just an image stored away in my mind for later reference. One of them could have been the man I'd been searching for, but I may never know.

There was nothing significant about this one, at least, nothing that I hadn't seen or done at least five times before. Something in my heart snapped and I realized, "This shit’s got to stop."

"Could this man beside me be the one?" I think. "Could this be the man of my dreams? Or is he just another trick like the rest?" Only two hours earlier this man had licked his lips at me outside of a rest stop and asked if I needed a ride.

"No, this is not the one."

So I retraced my steps and recover what I lost. I wiped the mess from my chest with the stranger’s shirt, got out of bed, and put my boxers on backward in my haste.

The stranger was staring at me, "Don’t look so hurt. It’s not like you expected me to stay." I said as I buttoned my jeans.

"Let me give you my number," the man said while digging through the nightstand.

I saw hope in that stranger’s eyes, but couldn't play along. I need to start fresh. How could I ever explain to someone later in life that we met in such a way?

"I won’t call you," I state, certain of nothing. "This was fun, but I don’t think it’s what I really want."

The stranger was stunned silent as I threw my bag over my shoulder and head out the door. More together than I ever thought I could be, I began my search.