gimme that old fashioned morphine.
it was good enough for grandpa.
it was good enough for billy burroughs.
it was good enough for isabelle eberhardt.
it's good enough for me.
-jolie holland

there was nothing wrong with it at all. socks. backrubs. lounging. enjoying each other's company. relaxing back into the comfortable. mild flirting. sedated by tv. foot cramps. sitting on pillows.

nothing wrong, bad, weird.

so why do i feel guilty?

there are kids in calcutta who have it so rough that it takes an international effort and vast donations just to get them a basic education. there are women stoned to death by their peers for walking with the wrong man. the oceans are dying.

i am so obsessed with myself. consumed by what might be thought of me, or how i might be influencing others, whether intentionally or not. when, come to think of it, it doesn't matter a goddamn bit. in the skein of things, i don't matter much at all. and anyone who feels that their life is being pushed and pulled by my actions, is wrong. you make your choices, you take your moves. if you think i have some kind of agenda... i only wish. i am stumbling my way through a midlife with no more notion of where i'm going than a blind man in an ass-kicking contest.

or maybe i'm not selfish enough.

someone get me a fresh needle, i'm ready.

all the world's a stage

how trite, hm? to begin with a beginning that isn't even my own. however, tonight is players' night. tonight is ripe for point and counterpoint. tonight my script is torn and illegible.

we begin in the evening: the host. i know this role, i perform it well. i have much practice. predict the guest will. i have a knack. but this night, a rogue thread twines the plot. the host is a bastard. he has forsaken his (holy) servitude for a shallow selfishness. he courses for a fight. but he is too cowardly to pursue such opportunities. what a night would be wrought with grasping arrows and desperate slings? not one to be regarded with frowning grunts of approval over scotch, no, not that at all.

there was a brief stint as lover, i do relish that role. it was one i was born for but so often disdain. i enjoy doing things well, so i play it well. that is not to say that my heart is not always in it. but tonight, it is stanza, not free verse.

what is one to do when they find themselves on their stage, when they would just as well be in the shade? should you beg off? should you play your part, as best as you might? what is right? what is honest? what will you be proud of later? so many questions, so many questions.

i hear that venus and the moon are in conjunction. i can't see through the swollen clouds. but i imagine them laughing, behind their curtain, no audience to yet judge their performance. free to do as they may.

i moved away for a while. i left my boy behind. it was necessary. even though it wasn't perfect, and not what i really wanted. we stayed friends. it's good enough, most of the time, and i did find someone else, but it's not the same. and you can't help the old feelings coming back.

there was a gathering. i was visiting, back in town. he had found someone else in the meantime (so had i, but that doesn't matter in these circumstances, does it?). i hugged him and he remembered me. of course he remembered me. we smiled at each other and our hands lingered. he was attached, we couldn't fool around, but the lingering was real. and it's hard to find people out here, i know.

i went to flagstaff. for work. it's a long way from home, a long way from things that i know. things are good, don't get me wrong. we stay well in touch. he knows how i feel about things, about work and life. i know how he feels about the mountains (adoration), and about suburbia (loathing).

but he uses "well" instead of "good" when people ask him how he's doing. he knows wine. he smells spicy and has beautiful eyes. he has a quiet wit and noisy opinions. i can't help but love him. and his boyfriend is so... tight and constrained. half irritated all the time without any of the joie that he really loves. i know they won't work. i just know it.

it begins to rain, and we are done with dinner. i insist on going outside and standing in the rain. there's a girl there, some friend of a friend from australia. she's nice, and decides to stand with me. i want to shout and revel in the rain, but the rest of them feel like they are just outside to be polite or something. i look back on it and realize that i was being too exuberant. i feel embarrassed thinking about it, it was too much. but i wanted him to see me, my passion. remember it. rain fell, i rubbed it into my hair. i grinned and celebrated the thunder.

we watched a movie. there was an open space on the couch, next to the girl, but it would have been confusing. so i sat in the chair. across the room. and we watched a movie, well, it was an episode of some miniseries thing from the nineties. it couldn't keep my attention though, my glances falling over and over across the room. he was giving him a backrub. they were so close. so fucking close. but it wasn't going to work, couldn't he see that? but did it matter? i felt like a hypocrite, a jealous silly hypocrite.

and it doesn't even help to tell myself to quit it. i know, i know, it makes no sense to be jealous. not here, surrounded by friends. the thunder outside, the good food inside, the people in here are doing the right things. but i feel too tall, too clumsy, too jealous.

i want to kiss the planes of his face. i want to run my hands on his body, forgetting about all of the now and the then. just being us again. i want to smell him on me. i want to make him feel good in the ways that only i know.

the episode ends, and the lights are turned on. we stretch, and he and his boy make the motions of leaving. i feel too strange to stay. and too strange to leave, but there are more options elsewhere. and wind. and a dark night to talk to.

i once knew a woman who beat her husband. she would humiliate him in supermarkets with her fierce tongue. she didn't hit him when other people were around, only later. he would yell too, get really mad, but she just hit him harder for it. i sometimes thought i should do something, but i never did.

he wasn't small, he was a big guy. well, tall. he had reddish hair that he kept short. he was a stringy man, wiry. one time over beers at the pub down the street, i gave him a cigarette. he smoked it with relish, though he kept saying jokingly that his wife would smell it on him and be pissed off. i asked him how things were. he said they were fine. he told me that his dad used to beat him and his mom with a belt. it was a strange thing to say. i didn't ask him about his past or anything, i don't even know him that well. i think he was about thirty-five. he smelled like sawdust.

i wonder if he loved his wife. maybe he felt like he was taking penance for his dad. maybe he just couldn't bear fighting back. i think it made his wife hit harder.

around the yard, they don't talk. he'll cook on the grill, and she'll clean the car. she doesn't have a garden, but her car is really clean. it's like a dodge something, a minivan. i imagine that it smells like fake pine. they'll brush right by each other and not even look, as if the other was invisible.

i imagine them falling in love. maybe ten or so years ago. she loves his gentle smile, he loves her energy and spirit. she takes the reins, pushes him to the ground, kissing his stubble, undoing his belt. afterward, he stares at the sky, and she stares at his eyes. she thinks that he has what she is missing. i think, she's still trying to get it out. digging with slaps and spit and desperation.

it's so confusing to be jealous. to envy such abuse. i try to sort it out, i'm not a fighter. i don't like pain. i'm not like that. but my life feels diluted. it's not empty, and i'm not sad or suicidal. it's just flat. i can see all the way down the road.

i don't hold anyone's dreams. i don't make anyone sad. i don't want someone to hit me. but i think, i want someone to want to.