I wake in the morning and eat powder for breakfast. Chocolate or vanilla. Blend with milk and serve in a makeshift plastic cup.
For some reason, in my head, I believe that doing so will fill the holes of my body in places I can’t see. That it will, in some magical way…fix me.
Lately, it’s been working.
…
All is quiet on the western front. Troubling, indeed. Everything seems to be falling into place. I have no twitch, no ache, no bell. More than once this week, it has crossed my mind, the possibility that I dabble in self-destruction. That I need to find a way to fuck everything up and turn my lovely endeavors on their head before I can patch them up and build them higher.
I’ll let you know how that goes.
…
Fucking satisfaction, everywhere I am lately turning…to an extent. Look what it’s doing to me, to us. Worry not, I’ll soon swallow a bomb, blow myself into a thousand pieces and have lots of wonderful things to speak.
Tonight, I was planning on being relevant, for once. All for the sake of Valentine’s. I was just on the roof with Cupid. Yes, THE Cupid. We had a heart to heart about the state of things. It was more than a little depressing.
First of all, let me tell you a bit about my friend Q-12. Since it’s a family of 32, they’re numbered Q-1 through Q-32. Each is responsible for inspiring love in different regions of the world. Q-12 is exclusively responsible for Los Angeles. On the surface, I know…it does seem overly generous to designate one Cupid for a single city. Trust me when I say…we need it.
The Q’s, as they prefer, are a strange breed. As we survive and grow through nourishment in the form of food, water and safe shelter, their sole source is the satisfaction of turning strangers into lovers. He went on to speak endlessly with great conviction, the profound ideal of turning any corner of any street and finding someone you can’t live without.
I couldn’t help but agree.
On the surface, Q-12 is a nasty, nasty little man. Literally. He stands a rough four feet…and that’s generous. The threads he totes consist of an oversized and stained wife beater that flows over his “Caboose to Big-Boy City” Huggies. He chain-smokes and shoots bourbon…constantly.
In his ramblings, he told me how he was born an Adonis. Tall, charming, beautiful. Over the course of time, he had been reduced by a city so ugly in its pursuit of love, he was slowly transformed. He told me this as he unwrapped and wolfed down a Carl’s Jr. Jalapeño Burger that I’m certain he shoplifted.
I bought him a cup of coffee and began to send him on his way. Before he left, he asked me to make a promise.
Since he was beyond drunk, allow me to transcribe. For my words are sweeter than his…
Be not alone on this day…allow me the good fortune to collect the pieces of a once proud, now tattered being. Find a sweet girl…treat her sweet, for me…for my day.
I agreed.
Then, I got down on a knee and we embraced. It was a moment I’ll never forget. After all, I was holding a legend in my arms. But it wasn’t just that. There was an unforgettable aroma seeping from his pores. I gagged, many times. He pulled back, leaving greasy impressions on my jeans and jacket.
And he took off into flight…
I watched as he zigged and zagged through the air without an ounce of grace. It made me sad to think I live in such a place. A place that could transform a man into that. How tragic, I’ve fallen in love with a city full of souls afraid to fall in love. A city so wrapped in its own pursuits that we treat THAT sort of happiness as if it were a poison.
How sad that after the expiration of my promise, I’m certain I’ll get over it. After all, my city is yet conquered.
