Porch screens all smell the same--of smoke and dust, a little metal. Standing behind or in front of one, staring in or out, the world is a simple, detached grid. Something permeable, like a membrane, between you and a storm--you and a bee. You and an exiled lover. The triumph of separation; "I dare you to try to enter here." Screen doors. Window screens. Inviting chaos--a screen is the fishnet stocking of a comfortable nesting instinct.

Knowing it was dirty, still holding everything that ever touched it, I pressed my face against its tension anyway. I sneezed. I went and washed my hands, sat down to write.

Handcuffs

The Sunrise Cafe in Fayetteville smells of bacon, and my stomach is full of everything from eggs and coffee to a lousy, underlying guilt about the decent job I know I'm quitting. I hate it. It's not real work. It's sitting and sitting and watching the clock, and it's what everyone else is doing these days in a dying nation. I love working with my hands and shutting down my mind. Writing doesn't do that for me. Everything comes out all wrong these days—or at least it seems to when I try to sculpt words out of sensation, experience, and ambiguity. I rely more and more upon music and the voices of others to keep me here.

What is wrong with anonymity? Nothing is wrong with me today, except the creeping knowledge that I tend to disappoint everyone with my failure to live up to what they once believed was genius. I think they confused it with passion. The passion continues, most of the time—or at least waxes with the manic moons, and then I believe that I can do or be something special between now and oblivion. And then the crushing feeling—not fear, not anxiety or sloth...just the sensation of confusion about what it means to be satisfied with myself. It's true: most other people will only love you if you're never satisfied. If you're always reaching...“with the hunger of ambition, for the change inside the purse; they are handcuffs on the soul, my friend. Handcuffs on the soul, and worse.”*

Then I think that what I refer to as “satisfaction” must, in fact, be my special brand of fear. That tug inward that makes me want to be invisible some days, and appreciated or even worshiped on others. I think now that perhaps I know better than to want the rest of the world to love me. I just want to be good enough for the ones that should love me whether I am good enough or not.

“And when they say that you're not good enough, well the answer is: you're not. But who are they, or what is it that eats at what you've got?”*

A.R.

*Paul Simon

Mixing Memory and Desire

B,

It's been years since I started hoping for news of your death.

You are the only person I have ever hated, and I doubt that even spitting on you in your casket would dilute the vitriol I feel when I even try to imagine your face.

Whether or not I ever could have believed in a benevolent god, you alone would have been enough to compel me to doubt it. The notion that even predators and rotten people can inadvertently work some good in the world now seems like the ultimate copout. Even if it is true, I find myself wishing you away, whether or not you have some "purpose" to serve in your miserable remaining years.

For once, I met someone whose inside was truly as ugly and deformed as his outside. You always smelled of mold beneath your clothes.

You stole two years of my life and poisoned my mind. You taught me to mistrust those who claim to love me. You took the best parts of my soul and turned them against me. You did the same to several other women. I hope you die. My heart pounds. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

I have to cure this, for my own sake. It surges sometimes, without warning. "Love your enemies" sounds noble, until you have a real one.


Song to My Assassin
by Leonard Cohen


We were chosen, we were chosen,
Miles and miles apart--
I to love your kingdom,
You to love my heart.

The love is intermittent;
The discipline continues:
I work on your spirit;
You work on my sinews.

I watch myself from where you are;
Please don't be mistaken:
The spider web you see me through
Is the view I've always taken.

Begin the ceremony now
That we have been preparing
I'm tired of this marble floor
That we have both been sharing.

Evil.

It isn't obscure. It isn't romantic. It isn't even dark, let alone intriguing, as most folks over the course of history seem to think. It is transparent. We as a species over-identify with it because it is the easiest thing to understand. Monstrosity is something at which we feign shock. The fact is that even the simplest creatures with claws and fangs can cause suffering. We just give it a new face and call it art.

The lesser, lower half of human existence is the basest form. Torture, murder, cannibalism: all of these make perfect sense in their own instinctual respects.

Mercy? That one puzzles me. Revenge makes perfect sense. It's there in the Old Testament for all to see and read. It is given shape by Adam and Eve--i.e. blame the other. Cain and Abel: destroy the weaker and feign ignorance. War, war, war. That's the low road. You take it, and I'll be in Scotland before you.

I want to think about Jesus and the Christian message, but all I keep coming up with as an invocation is Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman."

"All my life, I knew the right path. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? Because it was too damned hard."

Being good is complicated. Goodness is complicated. It's more difficult to put your finger on what makes a person "good" than what makes them "bad" or "rotten." And yes, I am of the opinion that most people are rotten, evil bastards--myself included. But only because of a lack of thought about what it means to be truly GOOD. Kind. What it means to have a heart.

Sometimes I don't think my heart can take this anymore.

It's only been six months since I slit my wrists (and oh, no pussy-ass halfway scars for me. See attached photo)...and I thought I had learned my lesson. But then I get here again and remember how exhausting it is, trying to figure out what "good" means, when "bad" is always the simple answer. It's like essay versus multiple choice, and your eternal soul (whatever the fuck that is) depends upon your score. Are you going to go with essay or multiple choice? Who the fuck reads those things anyway?