"The truth bludgeons."

"Is that how my sandwich entered into the world?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Are you going to do all of the talking?"

"No. Of course not. Why would I do that?"

She gave me every last bit of information. Everything that she own of herself in this world. All of of it. She didn't believe it anymore. She woke up to realize, it didn't convey anything about her. But it was where all the covet lied. Harboring stretched itself out in her life, making her obese in thought. Cramming anxiety down through her central nervous system. 

It was my vulnerability, yes. My vulnerability demanded hers. It insisted, holding vice-gripes. But I didn't realize it. I kept smiling. I had no idea how this experience.....this one, would blanket and extort the truth out of her. Out of both of us. 

But she was more than ready. I open the door, but her bags have been packed for years. She was ready.

"Their relationship consisted in discussion if it existed."



































Thom Gunn

William wants to slow the running down.

"I'm just saying."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Something degrades."

"Degrades?"

"Well. Something happens. Something loosens itself, and then it moves."

"It always seem to move somewhere else. Listen. It is like wall paper peeling from the top and falling at the same time....all around the room. Your running to push it back up. Your trying."

"I don't like wallpaper."

"Listen, OK? I'm just saying. It is trying to peel down and you have to let it. You have to let it peel down to reveal something else. Something more solid in yourself. Something more sustaining."

"OK."

"It's going to do it anyway. Relationships do that to you. They help you erode something. Something useless to you that you were trying to keep up, keep your back up against, you know? You are shoring that old self up.

"You think?"

"You have to let yourself be revealed. I can't tell you why at this point. Other than slowing the running down for a moment. I guess the point is to slow your running."

"I like to use paint."

"Yeah I know."

At home he stood facing east and stared down out of the window of his apartment. A slow commercial train casually rolled by. It’s rumbling  sound vibrated the building, and he lost himself in its rolling march. He tried to be sad. He tried to be miserable, but again found a resilience to question, and then he found it giving way to a desire to surrender. He was being pushed down. His actions were forcibly being chloroformed. It was all because he saw how predictable his life had become, how unbelievable asinine it had come to. It was all leading to a constant state of instability. Suspended there. Not quite destroying him, but just dangling him through its fissures and pulling him back up just to do it again. He wanted to know. 

He nosed around enough to stumble into understanding this great farce. The contents of his life, everything that made up the story was a conglomerate of bad consistencies and finally a sever devoid of interpretation.  Just like this train that was  rolling along, it was a  hard formidable band of nothing. His only revelation? Was that this all belong to him. It was his for however long he needed to be delivered from it. It didn’t belong to his friends or it wouldn’t be something that he could use to make these latest developments go away. His interpretation was only going to be in how to see it all and not in what actions to take. His action only created more bad, only more arresting. What does is it mean? Hugh would ask. He would stand there and only ask what does it all mean, but he would try again to just stop himself there. Right there.

They're still places in us.

Today he has made his mistake. He wanted to know something else. And he was willing to stop the future for the now questions. He wanted to know what was going on. He was yearning for something else. It started out innocently enough. It started out in religion. It started moving to philosophy. It always remained an intellectual discourse. It always remained intelligent and sophisticated. That is where the trap was. The conversations. Somewhere in the words. Maddie was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She had a fixed idea on coming over, and now she sat looking at him. She smiled again. This time more open and inviting. She glanced at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen, and wondered if the evening was a complete loss.  Straight into an embankment it felt like it was going. A tree stopping it on the other side. Her kids were with their dad. If nothing happened tonight she would have to try again in two weeks.

Conversation and sex with Hugh had gone on for about 5 months. She was attracted to it, he was attracted to it. He slept with one other woman and she knew it and it didn’t get in the way. She had her own episodes, but it wasn’t just this combination that Hugh had, it was something about that which held her close. It was magical in the way he expressed himself or spoke passionately about only the things that mattered. Again she kept her luggage packed, again she used sex to feel, but the relationship was meaningful. Today, tomorrow or next week it didn’t need explanations. But for Hugh it had become something else. He couldn’t stop his gut from hurting and he had to sit down. The conversations weren't the destination for him anymore. He needed more of a commitment. To what? He had no clue.

“Look I’m not looking to get married.”

“I can’t even tell you my blood type.”

He sat next to her and began talking like he normally does. He explained himself as for a minute he was losing his mind. Whatever he was on to he wanted to lose it for the evening. She kissed him and then he stood up. She grabbed his hand he guided her to the bedroom.

Slowie likes the way her body looks.

"I like the way my body looks naked."

"I do too."

"I feel like a woman. It has this look. It looks centuries old. It reminds me of those woman in paintings, you know? I took it back. I am not avoiding it anymore either."

"What? You always dressed well."

"But lately my subconscious was being invaded by the culture. It was talking to my ass. I'm not letting some motherfucka', interpret this shit based on some magazine. I like the way it looks."

"I like 70's porn. I never disagreed against it."

"You didn't have to. I had to figure this out."

"OK."

"I like these lines."

"I don't need convincing."

"I do."

Today it is not working out so well though. For whatever reason he’s coming a little unglued. Somehow dissatisfaction spilled out of him, and unto his shirt, and fallen down to his shoes. This relationship model that he has spent years to set up is not working. He is panicking and Mad can’t begin to see it.

            “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He said leaning back against the wall. “What do you think?”

           

“I don’t know.” She said forming a tight lipped smile.  She wanted to guide it all back, but she didn’t know where the hell it was.

Something he figures had guided him up to this point. Some sort of plan has been hatching. Life was becoming something else for him.

Unconsciously he was familiar with despair he like a lot of people considered it life. He considered despair, fear, longing and bewilderment life. Sure there was happiness, but what is happiness if you are in this constant pursuit of contentment. You are just trying to be ok with some good moments thrown in.

He was ok to drive it because it is what he has done since high school with girls he liked. He wasn’t interested in anything else. He loved intimate monologues with women. More than that he loved the travel of it, and not the destinations so much. This makes commitment irrelevant and he didn’t even realize it. In the last 25 years his conversations  went from adolescent, mannish and irrelevant to more philosophical and passionate. He was home with it. He became impressive, theatrical. Being handsome also helped. For Maddie it was a wonderful stop she enjoyed from her car. She wasn’t thinking of getting out and committing herself to anything. She was going to stay focus on how it felt from here. This is where it is safe, plus this is all she knows. She was going to keep her body in shape and give what she believed every guy has no means to turn down, sex from a woman physically in shape and and attractive.