Dead Eyes Alive

  There's this empty thing inside me, you could see it in my sonogram. It was fed enough at first, until I was too hip for hugs and traded Tonkas for shoveling liquids and solids in this hole of who I am. Unfathomable fathoms of a singularity; a lack of familiality. These are inside explanations at the periphery - the perimeter of the center: searching for significance.

  Rock cliches are in my chromosomes: Y had billboard dreams but wasn't raised that way, and X was just flattered. Embryonic memories of free beer and ashes. Dichotomy comes naturally - piggy-back rides and back-room stashes. Don't go in there when daddy has company. Can't tell dad where mom was, can't tell teacher mom didn't fall...kids with a kid and no clue at all...but trying.

  Full of little-boy love and hungry for the same...like a playground prostitute. Best friends in five minutes. No, mom, he didn't steal it, I gave it to him. Summertime bliss with wrinkled old souls and Happy Hills. An East Texas Avalon. Sacred ground walks a mile from Forever. Together. But I never knew...

  After-school special: the death of a family. Being a bad boy makes mommy go away. And nothing I could say. Re-collecting these recollections leaves shreds inside. Played like a front-line chess piece, initiated into mysteries no child should know, like a preteen referee at the main event. Given inside scoops & exposés on my most cherished misconceptions...with no exceptions.

  Searching with a vengeance, testing reunification theorems like an adolescent Einstein. Split down the middle like that baby in the scripture...and they went their separate ways. It must have hit a nerve, because the bible belt struck from out of nowhere. Repentance or repression, in the name of a loving God. I'd burn in the fire, but I had fire burning inside. It's a sin... and my deepest desire.

  I found what I was looking for in midnight open windows and six-pack sacrifices. Lowered inhibitions and lights-out lust led to chemical courage and blotter-paper prophecy. Hot loins and numb hearts led to more of the same...eggshell loyalties, a fellowship of shame. But I thought I fit right in, and vestiges of innocence were quickly laid to rest...

  It became all about pushing pipes & tapping lighters...dot, dot, dot...dash, dash, dash. S. O. S., begging to be saved by other sinking ships, and I was going down fast. I love this shit. Self-deception never had it so good.

  We were setting up shops (double occupancy). This is the life, to be esteemed. For some it's my street fashionista; for others, my pockets full of evil...and morbid curiousity of this train wreck in slow-motion, no emotion, life-long devotion - to the next five minutes. Blown out of my mind, bored out of my mind (what's next?). Sex. Pacify this inane ennui - fuck for hours. disSatisfaction in the pleasures of the flesh. Feeling like they want me as long as I can last...but there you have it. You could make Mandalas from the patterns I'm repeating. Right back to square one...

  This gravity inside has got me so twisted. The pull is so strong even the light can't escape from my eyes. I need. I've hurt so long feeling no pain becomes joy. I mis-take extasy for pleasure and chase my tail until my body's braided into ornamental knots of what I wanted in the first place. You can trace the lines with a fingertip, back to where I started. Just touch me. Help me through this. Help me do this. It's so true, this.

  Glory. Burning in my blood...amino acid expressions of my fate, but I turned destiny destitute. I sold my soul in eighths & sixteenths and failed so fast I died alive for my sins. Forty-five, for my sins... Aggravated. 75, plus 22, plus 43...equals me. So true to the game I became an equation, not a name.

  So here I am, codified & coerced, boxed-in & babysat - trying to make a name. All day, go hard. Catch the yard. Catch the square...and we'll let you in the Circle. Melanin-deficient and shining like a rift in a total eclipse. All eyes on me. Fear and anger fight a dreadful fight. Totally out of my element, believing it's somehow relevant...any of this. Fooled for a minute but suffering from birth effects - congenital devolution inherited on my father's side. His father. And he was a man, gentle. Unable to relate, unable to escape...caught inside myself.

  Aloner and a loner, with  this unquenchable thirst. So sick of the fuckery, still searching...Pythagorus was staggering...things fall apart. Revision became my ism. I rewrote the world and rewrote myself, trading triple-beams for Shakespeare scenes. An alchemist in essence, transmuting base instincts into noble designs. Truth was my elixir, consciousness my chemicals. Impregnated mind dying to give birth...it was like I'd just occured to me.

  I went beyond good and evil, tapped the collective unconscious and fell into an archetype...and it felt so right. I listened to lessons that fell on deaf ears in hazy-day summers long ago. And suddenly, like a lightening bolt after-image searing cruciform certainty like Dagaz on my heart, I realized: that (I) was the hole in my heritage.

  Rectification became resolute. Like an apostle called to witness, I stood upon the mountain and testified...to a vacant congregation. Feeling more like my forefathers, I longed for a tribe of my own...ducks in a row to follow my every move, sugar and spice and everything nice. Daddy, will you marry me:  And I fall to pieces.

  But, like karma catching up, the dream became a fantasy. What did I deserve for all the pain I'd served: Forty-five, for my sins. Dead alive, for my...my heart became more eso as my exo fell apart, and the only ties that held were the ones that held me down. So I fashioned tiny caskets and laid my clan to rest. So far from heaven.

  You saw it in my eyes, those little flames inside me died. I built a tomb with walls so thick so they and I could share this solitude, but you walked right through like the ghost of how it should be. And so did I. But, man, did we fight hard against it. We drew lines in sand to cross them, and set up boundaries just to toss them. And I was surprised I wanted to.

  We rubbed two minds together like sticks and in the midst of this friction the kindling caught. I welcomed back that little boy love like a long-lost best friend while you miscarried every conception you had. Like Jacob the jeweler, we were looking for flaws...and finding authenticity. So tired of being hard & scarred.

  My tender touch was something new, both to me, and to...you found yourself pulling out show-and-tell secrets you'd lied about before, thinking they'd be deal-breakers...and found that they were bond-makers. I was wrapped up tight. We rode rollercoasters so high our fingers brushed the heavens, and drew hearts in the air with stardust tails.

  I felt a deep desire to emulate that gentle man, and felt him smiling down..."I knew you had it in you, son." I resurrected dreams of little-kid connections and the man I should have been, I could have been...the father I would have been. You made me feel, for the first time in forever, like four walls weren't my worth...like my love might be enough.

  So I knelt on knees stiff with ancient pride and voiced it to the Gods: let these oaths bind me, lest heaven's lightning blind me. I shed blood to this, testify I'm true to this. I've held it like a treasure, this secret I'd meant to share...anniversary-to-be.

  My soul: gentle hands hold me, I'm rough and worn, but yours. My heart: lies with delicate strength in the palm of your every whim. My eternity: travels with you, however far afield. And no decisions like incisions can change this fateful fact; My Forever is Forever. My goddess...remember me.