If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em

You are a fucking fraud; always have been.  A phony hologram of a human.  You're a shadow.  A nomadic phantom that belongs nowhere, yet tries to fit in everywhere.  I tried to give you a place to exist as yourself, but it wasn't good enough; not enough to make you happy, anyway.  You rejected my brand of love to the point of fucking me.  You'll never be what you claimed to be.  And I'll never be that tender and unlocked again.  Searching for something genuine is exhausting.  Nothing feels real anymore.  I haven't felt in touch for months.  I've been orbiting the stratosphere out there somewhere in the ephemeral swarth. One day bleeds into the next.  The night offers only slight solace, as the darkness settles and envelopes my thoughts as they lap and ebb in the moonlight.  I keep trying to scrub away the pain, but it just won't wash off.  My skin is raw and cracked, red and scaled, like the reptiles that got this fucked ball rolling. My mind is twisted and knotted up, it won't let go, like the gnarled, tangled roots of a mangrove, nourished by the surrounding swamp.  I can't seem to navigate any of this.  No wonder my caudate nucleus takes over much of the time, my higher functioning seems to be on Neptune somewhere, vacationing from the hurt.  I guess it just doesn't want to feel it anymore either.  There is no one on Earth to trust, perhaps it's on a one-man mission to find other forms of intelligent life.  Or at least emotionally moral ones.  Corruption, self-interest and moral bankruptcy is all that is left on this planet.  Just forgive everyone of everything, making all actions near meaningless.  Who cares if you get fucked over?  Just forgive and forget so one doesn't have to torture oneself.  Because the torturer is never an external force.  Right.  Since one cannot control others actions, it's futile to even care about them.  "You really only hurt yourself," or some such bullshit.  Fuck that.  That's horseshit that people say to someone they have fucked over to buck any sense of responsibility.  Everyone lies.  Everyone is a selfish pig bastard.  Ugh, I'm so fucking emo, man.  Just drink your troubles away, like everyone else.  Smoke yourself apathetic.  Numb yourself to everything.  Trick yourself into feigned happiness.  Because feeling things fucking sucks, punks.  People will disappoint you every God damned time.  Get with the program, fall in line, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.  I just float, barely mobile in the viscous jelly of emotion.  It once ripe with ribbons of love and romance or at least the hope thereof.  Clean and aromatic with the scent of wildflowers and wistfulness, now muddied with the stench of agony, malice and revenge; it pulls me deeper and deeper into its abyss.  The only creatures that exist at these depths are the creepy and licentious, the disgusting and deformed, those not fit for the light; the leaches, the takers.  The smash-and-grab set, eyeing all their slimy tentacles can hold.  How does one get back to the viridians and saffrons when all one can see is ink and jade.

Guy Clark- Dublin Blues

The Baron of Chandler Park Revisited: Rambles and Rough Realizations

     The devastating thing I realize, is that they are fucking perfect for one another.  Completely akin.  I'm the odd man out.  That's why I can't comprehend their need to keep in touch.  I don't keep that in touch with my husband of eleven years.  Because I truly want him to be happy, and I don't feel the need to continue to interject myself in his happiness, regaling him with wistful memories from a sad, faraway past.  We are much closer than that.  Whatever it is we are, whatever bond we have, it is unspoken, and truer than any niceties we could exchange.  I made the choice to leave that relationship for a reason; there is no sense in revisiting that pain with him.  That's something we can both do on our own if we so choose.  We don't have to hurt people in the process. But not these half-witted trilobites.
     Their intermittent, but continued contact or attempts at contact is a powerful reminder that I am not of the same planet.  I am the alien.  We don't share any commonalities.  It was duplicity right from the jump.  Their contact serves the purpose of reinforcing the others illusions.  Making sure the other is still chained to the wall.  They are basically one.  They both crave the spotlight and applause.  They both desperately seek approval and validation from others in lieu of any genuine personality of their own.  It's a paper thin attempt to prove that they are someone instead of no one.  They are dull and mediocre.  Unremarkable save for the pain they cause with their egomania. I don't resemble any of the characters in this game.  I foolishly put all my stock in truth-telling and truth-seeking.   I need things to feel real; authentic.  I don't care about others approval because most aren't fit to give it.  What the hell do they know anyway? I have to be able to face myself, not anyone else.  Why would I care to seek the approval of those who don't give a fuck about how I feel in those melancholic hours of the night.  I don't need them to legitimize my work.  If they don't like it, fuck 'em.  The right people will get it.  I create for myself, not for accolades or the adoration of faceless nobodies in a crowd.  That's not how or why one makes art.  I write as a way to photosynthesize the pain that comes with being human.  With being vulnerable and honest.  I write to say things that no one has ever said or not enough people are willing to talk about it, but all part of human existence, nonetheless.
     Art is supposed to elevate; make people think and make people feel.  Art is supposed to bind us together through pure human essence.  The best art tells the truth.  It doesn't perpetuate some lame fantasy or hollow image.  True art is courage.  Art doesn't exist simply to validate some egomaniac's closeted insecurities masquerading as narcissism.  Because their Daddy didn't love them enough or maybe Mommy smothered them too much.  So, they feel the need to *prove* themselves through "art."  Calling themselves artists just to receive the spoils that inevitably come with that type of self-applied moniker.  From other illusioned dim-wits, undoubtedly.  But really, their ultimate fantasy would be to star-fuck themselves.  Could a more superlative earthly thrill be found?  Hard to beat when one is so supreme.  No wonder there is so much compulsive masterbating afoot.  They are the only ones good enough for the likes of their greatness.  Narcissism absolute.
     Not every God-damned thing is art, jackasses.  A lot of it is just transparent, attention-seeking horseshit.  "I just have to express myself."  That all important self.  Not every form of self-expression is art.  Some of it is just unadulterated neural garbage; cognitive run-off.  But most of it isn't nearly that exciting.  Most of it is just mundane banality that no one cares about or ever will care about because it's too self-absorbed to have any external interest or social value.  That's why I just write for my own sanity.  I'm not naive enough, or faux-optimistic enough to think my writing is going to have some grand fucking impact.  There are no earth-shattering revelations here.  There are just silly, schmaltzy words on page. It's just the distillation of romantic pain.  "Dodgson! We've got Dodgson here! See, nobody cares."  People are too wrapped up in their own enthralling lives to really give a shit about anyone else.  The quixotic are few.
     I used to think they were the troglodytes of the cave, but now I am not so sure.  I don't think they are even that far up the evolutionary chain.  They are merely the piceous shadows that others cast on the umbered cave wall.  Mere deceptions; only approximations of humanoids.  Solely concerned with image or persona, rather than personage.  They have no interest in those humans about them, and certainly no interest in what lies outside the cave, in the unfathomable sunlight.  They enjoy their chimerical and paltry existence.  Their projected image is all they care to know.  They love the dreamy focus of the cavern, where they can continue tricking others and fooling themselves.  Their obsidian shadows flicker hand-in-hand in the sepia-hued obscurity.

Beat It or An Exercise in Restraint

Me: Hola. This is [Redacted], you know, of song renown. I see you continue to feel the need to 'keep in touch' with my husband for whatever vainglorious reason. I should have confronted you when you first decided to pop up into our relationship, uninvited and unwanted. But I was trying to keep cool, amid your juvenile nonsense. What you did was really dirty and vile. Trying to make some melodramatic scene by flying back here. I didn't *steal* anything, I'll have you know. We met, by happenstance one night; he walked in to the bar I was at, invited to do a review of a concert there. He wouldn't stop staring at me with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He stared so much, that I thought he must be foreign, as he didn't seem to understand American social customs. That was pretty much all it took. We started talking after the concert and he invited me to his house that night and we both already knew. Undeniable, animalistic magnetism. We were in love. It was that simple. He certainly didn't act attached. He asked me to marry him and move in with him pretty soon after. And then you came along, whining for attention. You came in and tried to fuck up my happiness, which I just can't take too kindly to. You didn't seem to care too much about him before, but once he found someone else then all of a sudden you felt the need to interject yourself. Really cool, man. Not transparent, at all. The thing is, I'm not even mad at you. You were just doing what is in your nature to do; act like a bratty, drama queen. I'm just mad at myself, for not stepping in and nipping this in the bud, sooner. I went against my nature and said nothing, when I should have expressed myself at the time. He doesn't need nor want you in his life. He lumps you in the category with all his old, erroneous exes. It's clear you were trying to extract some kind of creepy validation from him, last night. Why, I don't know. I have to tell you, it really doesn't have some grand meaning to him. It just doesn't. He looks at it all as a waste of time. Much of it is embarrassing to him, so he doesn't like to think about it. But his interpretation shouldn't have any effect on yours, unless you *need* his approval to have your own feelings and ideas. And yeah, I did leave a mean and hilarious comment about that stupid-ass "song." Which he thought was funny too. I also wrote a scathing blog piece inspired by you, that although, explicit and quite ruthless, was met with the searing endorsement from him you so desperately seek. Not that I cared what he thought of it. If the question is how did I do it, then the answer is, by being myself. By being authentic and different and rad. Instead of being the same, like all the other dizzy, lame twerps he'd known before. Keep out of our relationship, for real. You've already done enough.

Them:  Got it. Just trying to make some peace. Admitted to my wrong doings. Apologized. If you feel the need to be nasty and hurtful after three

Years, so be it. I just wanted to see that he was happy. We've all moved on. We're all adults. And to suggest that ANY relationship with

Anyone, negative or positive is erroneous, is really just dishonest. I'm sorry you heard that awful song. I know it probably felt gross

But it looks like you got your revenge (with your blog?) I'm sorry for "liking" your husband's status. I had no intention of opening this
Can of worms. I'm glad you both have each other. Truly.

Me: You only admitted to any wrongdoing after it was brought it up. Not exactly of your own accord. So, let's step off the high horse. You didn't just "like" his status days after he posted it. You wanted it to start a conversation; talk about disingenuous. You kept saying all you wanted is to know how he was doing. That's beyond just liking a post.

     I am being honest, if that happens to be 'nasty and hurtful', then so be it, but that's how I feel. And that's how he feels. He really was embarrassed by that song when I showed it to him. He felt it reflected poorly on him. He couldn't even listen to it all the way through. I actually thought it was pretty funny. I played it for my friends. We laughed about it. My friend said it best when she lamented, "Man, at least someone wrote a song about you. No one ever wrote a song about me."

     That's how I've felt for 3 and a half years. One good turn deserves another, I guess.

     And quite frankly, I don't care how you feel about he and I. Your opinion of our relationship is irrelevant. Your relationship with him is/was irrelevant, much to your dismay. It doesn't factor into anything at all. People with over-inflated egos the size of parade floats tend to not understand that they might not matter in every God damned thing, that they aren't the center of the universe, but it's true all the same. I'm writing this to you, for me. My inaction has grated at me since this all occurred. I feel the need to tell you what you did was shitty and the way you're acting now isn't too different either.

Me:  Just slink back into the woodwork from whence you came.

Them:  Yikes. You're a frightening person.

Me:  You got that right.

Them:  Congratulations.

Me:  Yeah, it's better to just take shit from people. That's the way.

Them:  Your blood pressure is probably higher than mine is right now

Me:  Ha. Or maybe I feel pretty good. Like relieved.

Them:  I'm glad you got all that out. I'm sure you feel better.

Me:  Yeah, I'm sure you do.

Me:  It's okay to go around acting like an ass, fucking with people's relationships, but it's not okay to call them out on it. I see.

Them:  I'm sorry, [Redacted]

I'm sorry I hurt you

I was naive and wanted closure.

Not an excuse. But still, it's what I was thinking at the time

I was wrong

I've been wanting to apologize for years

Me:  Yeah, I just don't buy that. Because you just would have already. Without prompting. You wanted closure, but it seems you didn't get it, because you contacted him several times after. I think you wanted a little more than closure. You wanted to involve yourself in something that no longer involved you. If I could go back and do it again, I would have talked to you face-to-face, woman-to-woman. Which I think would have benefited all parties involved. Instead, I trusted people around me, that I shouldn't have. I went against what I felt in my heart was the right thing, and it had a monumental cost. It's never felt quite right since. Because I didn't do what I knew was the right thing. And that's on me. The apologies don't matter either, because it won't change the past. It only works to relieve you of some onus of responsibility, which I can't quite accept either. I never knew him or even of him before the night I met him. I never knew you or the other bit players in this farce either. It was all new to me. So, I was thrust into something unaware, while everyone else was playing out some antique storyline around me. That's what it felt like anyway. Like I said, you did what it was in your nature to do, I get it. It was still hurtful, but I understand it. That's why I'm honestly not mad at you. But I do have a couple years of bitter resentment and invective to burn off. I saw my chance, and I took it this time. The other players involved, were much more scheming, and that I won't ever understand. But you need to know what you did had a serious impact. But it doesn't matter all that much now, as long as you don't try to involve yourself anymore in our marriage. I hear California is really the most. Make the most of it. Take 'er easy.

Post Script: Is apathy really better than hate? Honestly? At least hate is human.  At least it is something as opposed to nothing.  It is presence as opposed to absence.  Apathy is for sociopaths and robots.  And feigned concern is for closeted sociopaths, i.e. textbook narcissists. Those dim troglodytes who feel they have learned all there is to know.  Gods among men, really.  Enlightening us all with their shadowy wisdom.  Faux-optimism, pseudo-intellectualism, misplaced sexuality, and the condemnation of any negative emotion.  That's the ultimate delusion.  Scoffing in the face of hundreds of thousands years of evolution because the cave-dwellers know best.  Don't be mad, don't be mean, don't hate...  It's like saying, 'don't feel half of your feelings.'  Hate is the misunderstood loner in the back of the class.  Hate wears a leather jacket and doesn't give a shit.  Hate is often confused with anger. But true hate is more latent, pervasive, and substantial.  Hate can be very passive.  Anger is aggressive; very active.  Hate usually takes the rap for ignorance or madness, but it's wildly different.  Hate's too cool to make its own case.  Hate just hangs around, smoking cigarettes, making flippant comments in between puffs.  Hate only steps in when absolutely necessary.  Hate can protect when used judiciously.  Hate can be very rational; frighteningly so.  Sometimes hate is warranted, but hate takes balls.  Hate isn't for everyone.  Hate is an acquired taste.

     If Artificial Intelligence exists in certain robots, does Artificial Stupidity (A.S.), or more accurately, Artificial Serial Stupidity (A.S.S.) exist in some android human models? Holographic humanoids with all the working parts, but no emotion nor intelligence of any kind.  No real sense of humanity.  These supposed humans fool many.

Post Post Script: The ruin we've caused forces the cool steel to my temple; the soft, mist-colored memories of those primrose days dares me to pull the trigger. We collect sadnesses like old baseball cards, gathering dust in the attic of our mind, waiting for them to be worth something someday. But do they ever really increase in value? Or do they just take up precious space...
The old piano melody refuses to leave, maybe I don't want it to. I held on so tightly, but it all slipped through my fingers, nonetheless.