tRoPpMaNn-On A wIrE

-1-

We give no credit to a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

I guess it all has to do with perception. My perception of you. Your perception of me. My perception of myself. Your perception of yourself and your perception of my perception of your perception.

Look, I like drugs because I am an honest person. You see, if I walk down the street and see a bum curled up in a corner, some rich person wearing and endangered animal for a coat or people missing arms or teeth or legs or even hair. I don’t look the other way. I don’t give myself some rap about the absurdities of urban life. No, I do what any other normal person would do. I get really depressed.

But, if I smoke a joint or pop a pill or snort something my perception has been altered and reality has been sufficiently changed so that when I walk down the street I’m lucky if I see anything at all.

-2-

In the past few weeks a lot has happened and I realized that I can’t control everything and everyone in my life. I always want things to go smoothly and calmly so I cover things up in my head by ignoring them so I won’t get hurt, but all it ever ends up doing is hurting me so I’ve got to figure out new ways to deal with penetrating objects.

I never meant for bad things to come out of my actions. I just thought, like I said before, I could ignore it. I can’t and now I feel totally out of control and I just really hate that.

-3-

The night grew old when they finally decided to change the conditions of their lives. Nothing had been the same since the last time they went out. Having someone wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night is a very old need. They hadn’t been that way in a long time. It has probably been a couple months since they felt anything, let alone the wonder as to the where’s and why’s of the other person.

Maybe they took advantage of the love they thought they had for each other, maybe they just stopped caring long enough so that when they realized what they were doing to each other they couldn’t change the pain they were inflicting on the other person.
The love was there in their hearts, they could still feel it; but, they couldn’t bring it on themselves to conjure real emotions.

-4-

Substance.

-5-

They would ache inside until they couldn’t stand the pain, until the pain clouded their vision, their true intentions.

Yes, the night has grown old, maybe too old, but the situation is still the same. Two people are trying to understand where they fit in another person’s world. Pushing and struggling to find a nitch, that foot hold or maybe just a little shade to keep the sun out of their eyes.

They think they know what love is, what the feeling should feel like, but they can’t seem to grasp the image that has followed them for all those moments and years when there wasn’t the threat of loss.

-6-

“Please, what is the matter with you?” said the young gentleman caller.

The beautiful young woman couldn’t raise her head to look the man in the face. She seemed to be in a trance or maybe she was ashamed of something. Never the less, she wouldn’t answer the gentleman’s question.

He tried one more time.

“I know it is probably none of my business, but you look like you need someone to talk to. If you don’t mind, I could be that someone to talk to.” He stood above her with an earnest look on his face, trying to look as helpful as possible.

The young lady stood for a moment and looked around her for a way out of the situation that was confronting her. The only thing around her that she could use as an escape was the front door. She wanted desperately to run down the street, run with all her might until she collapses in a heap of exhaustion in a yard somewhere.

She sat down on a chair that had been in the entrance way of the house since she was a child. Reassured that it was still there she looked around for the first time since the man arrived. She had lost the nerve she had been building up for the last week. All the nerve she could scrape so she could meet this man.

When she looked up to the man she almost died a bucket of tears. The man had left the house and was walking down the sidewalk toward the street. He didn’t look back as he turned the corner and walked out of her life.

-7-

There are women whose beauty makes you forget where you are. It doesn’t happen often, but when you do encounter one of them, it is almost cruel the way they affect you. I have never understood how any man could live with one these creatures without going mad with paranoia or desire.

More disturbing still are the men who have the kind of physical beauty that transcends sexual gender. I remember, even as a young man, being hotly uncomfortable by their unearthly look. What did god have in mind with them? Are they here to remind us of the possibility of heaven and angels, or to taunt us mortals who are limited to one flesh, one physical way?

-8-

Like the time you said you would be there for me and I found myself alone. I was lost. I didn’t know where to turn inside myself. I will always wonder where you went and why you couldn’t do what your heart was telling you.