A couple days ago, I was watching Scorsese's "Shine a Light." It's a Rolling Stones docu that was shot mostly at NYC's Beacon Theater in 2006. It was cool, absolutely blows my mind that they're still around, blows my mind all they've made...
Between songs, there were these cuts to their days of youth, interviews they would give - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood. And there was something to it - seeing them, for me, maybe for the first time in their youth - classy punks, collected, composed. I have such admiration.
There was this clip where Keith was going on and on - distant and flying - after he and Mick had been released from jail on some sort of narcotic possession charge. The interviewer was digging at him, trying to evoke a gunslinger's response about the system and their imprisonment and all he could say, spacing and direct, "Well... maybe we'll get a song out of it."
...
I've got ache. All I can hope for is that it's dying -- not ripped raw. Right now though, it's lingering and I don't know which way it's gonna tip - still too fresh to call...
I had lunch with this girl today. She's something. She's --
I've loved two girls in my life -- told two girls that I had love for them. One I dated for years -- some great, many crushing. I look back and think we almost killed each other. She broke my first heart - never again had one like it. The other and I lived together in Cape Town...among other places. We dated for sub 1 year, saw the world's rare stretches, thought we died together in the Zambezi, may very well be forever etched into each other. For an overly dramatic 26 (27 in minutes) year old romantic, I can't help but think that's sparse. Between the in-between moments and relationships of my life, to find anything but a momentary spark has been so rare. Sometimes, friends think I'm gay. Often, I turn down "guilt-free" female fucks. In fact, I scoffed at two last night -- beautiful, and great, and interesting...
Just not for me. Nothing ever enough...
Then came a third girl. We saw each other for 6 weeks. After a month, when we were lying in bed, I told her I loved her. She smiled, gripped me tight, said something back but I didn't hear, couldn't hear, refused to hear. And I can't explain it, my style that's nothing if it isn't Kamikaze. And she was beautiful. Some kinda rare beautiful thing that's no longer mine. And it better be fucking okay that that stings because it does. Then or now, I could never wrap my head around her. I never wanted to, will never want to. Some things are there just to exist. She was like that.
We had a lunch today that began with a heavy kiss and ended with her gift-giving and a heavy goodbye. She drove away and I didn't watch -- some kind of conquering perception of mind -- my illusion of strength disallowed it. I opened the gate and had to stop. I felt light, like something was pouring from the soles in my feet, bleeding out into the concrete -- this force vacating my body, instantly replaced by another force, something heavy and daunting, a familiar thing to me. It was my Conquer, coming back, rushing through me, trained to not let a moment of weakness or hurt find me. And all it could say, push, push, push, we don't have time for this - there's too much, too much, too much. I can't help but listen. I want to listen. I have no choice. This is what I do. This is my life.
We compromised, Conquer and I, and I was allowed the time it took to get from the gate to the back door, through the hallway and into my apartment : : :
The smile came first and I had to dismiss it - too crippling. Then the eyes, that curl in her cheek, her stare -- always burning -- thinking back to how I'd reach my hand out in the middle of the night to find hers and she'd find me back. I remember giving up on sleep, never being tired, feeling my body crumbling inside, sick and addicted to the adrenaline of this she. I remember the world disappearing -- inside her -- I can't. Too much. It was too much then, it's too much now. We were so on and so wrong. I don't know how I expected myself to deal with any such things. So off and so right. This great competence I praise in myself often fails.
Sitting here now, I can't help but go against the grain. I can't help this. Tonight I'll sleep. Tomorrow, maybe all of this will be gone, though it certainly won't. It'll disappear in the stages I gave. Problem now - I was in deep. This girl took breath like Beckett's hammer curve. She was electric like watching Bellamy play God on stage. She crushed like that scene in Neverending Story when Artax loses his battle with the Nothing and fucking gives up and fucking drowns, just fucking drowns right there in the Swamp of fucking Sadness and it doesn't matter that he comes back in the end to ride the fucking plains, who fucking gives up in the Swamp of Sadness? This girl will always be...so good. Make no mistake. Sensational.
And she listened when I commented on the pleasantries of her down comforter, took note of my jealousies. And she saw the holes in my work socks, listened to my rant, my endless rants - one of them something along the lines of fuck work fuck them they can suck my balls before they even try to fire me do you think I will ever buy new socks for those...
Now there's a beautiful white down comforter on my bed. On top of the comforter, 5 pairs of black socks- this poetic juxtaposition...so pretty it gives me hurt. They were for my birthday...are still for my birthday, I suppose.
It's not an easy thing to do -- to let it go, when you want to fight for something you can't fight for - when there's still something screaming and you have to put it to bed, tuck it in and smother it with a pillow -- and you have to watch it kick and scream and fight for air, yelling through the pillow, this is wrong! this is wrong! this is wrong!
...
But I rationalize. I cut losses so that at the end of the day, I can try and sleep and live with the choices and paths I take. And I boil it down. I find comfort in simplicity. So this is it, all I'm trying to do, in this life...come up with a few good songs, maybe someday have enough to spin an album -- something that makes me happy, content. I have so many about growth and adventure and danger and they're great, they are...it's just...
I feel like this girl pulled 2-3 songs out of me. 2-3 songs that at any given moment could have cured all that ails and ailed. Now that she's gone, they're gone. They're lost. And I'll never know. I'm worried a night will come and the thought won't let me sleep, maybe for weeks. Maybe I worry too much.
I keep telling myself, all I keep telling myself, over and over -- respect it, love it, cherish it.
Because this is my song.
This is what I do.
