Walking to the library this evening, a summer storm came upon me.

You know. One of those storms that bursts on the scene with but a moment’s warning.

And is as quickly gone.

summer storm haiku

           angry clouds roll in

       dark and black and foreboding

           night air electric



       children run, laughing

           hands and shirts raised overhead

       helpless to the rain



           rainwind dying now

       patter of drops dissolving

   clouds part, light shines through

I’ve been thinking about butthole a lot lately. My hemorrhoids look like a clitoris. I sat on my butt way too long at the comedy club squirming. When I got home, papa bear was working in the garage so I walked up to him, with my date holding my hand, and asked, “Dad, where is your Preparation H?” Seemed casual enough to me, my date was laughing hardcore, but my dad’s red face said it all. “Ugh, I don’t have any.”

The fact that my hemorrhoids make better conversation than the jokes I heard at the comedy club says one of two things, and considering the comedy club was rather funny, so yeah…

I think the word platonic is a joke. I walked by a coffee shop a couple weeks ago and saw an attractive blonde at the register so I took my younger friend in to show him how it was done. I walked right up and said, “I didn’t come in for the coffee, can I have your number?” She blushed. Then said, “I have a boyfriend, but thank you so much for the compliment.” So my smartass friend was like, “He does platonic dating too.” And I had no idea what the word meant at the time. Neither did she apparently.

I apparently wanted to feel pretty awkward today, so I went to Walgreens with my girlfriend and went to the lube and condom section. I had recently seen the commercial from KY about His and Hers and when they meet, they make some sweet action. Sounded liked good lube, but they didn’t have it. We bought a sampler back and walked up to the cash register giggling like fourteen-year-olds. I strongly recommend buying lube if you’re so bored you’re pulling your hair out of your head.

In four weeks I will move to my own apartment.

That is pretty huge, believe it or not.

A year and a half ago the real collapse of my life began, although it could be said that it began in July of 2005. It was on New Years Eve in 2006, sailing into 2007, that I knew I would be returning to Florida. It was on that day that it became clear that this would be what I would be doing.

I had to destroy myself to do it, which was the most difficult part. It involved placing all my trust in someone I knew would betray me. It might not make sense to most people, but I could not be secure in the knowledge that she would betray me. I had to let her. Circumstantial evidence wasn't enough. I needed the murder weapon to seal the deal.

At the end of June, 2007, I left New Hampshire. I spent more than a month on the road. I stayed with friends for short stretches, including some noders, and I slowly made my way south with little money and no solid landing strip. I made the trip on faith. I knew I belonged in Central Florida and had gone against what I believed in to return north to resolve a long standing matter of a deeply personal nature. And when it was done, bloody and ugly as it was, I needed to go back to where I once belonged.

I had six hundred dollars to my name, a car that recently had its engine replaced, and simply knew I had to get back to Orlando to start again. I found many people willing to help me, and some went to great lengths and sacrifice to do so. At times I actually found myself choked up when they explained the reasons they were helping me were due to things I had taught them in the past.

After a month back in Florida, I fell into a part time job working twenty-eight hours a week for a paraplegic woman. I spent six months working for her. For the first two months I lived with two good friends, one of which figures into my personal mythology as my little sister. And then my "big sister" found me a roommate, who I have lived with since then.

Although he has a heart of gold and cares deeply about other people, my roommate has a lot of serious issues, including severe alcoholism, an addiction to foot porn (which he leaves scattered around the apartment), and issues such as leaving food burning on the stove and the refrigerator open when he passes out from drunkeness. I've a couple times come home and had to put out fires in the kitchen. It gets worse, but we won't go into that.

The important thing is that after this long and sometimes difficult stretch of my journey, I am about to finally go back to having my own apartment. I've had a full time job in my field for the past four months and received an excellent first review and a promotion. Things are falling into place and in four weeks I will finally be able to...

Sit down...

Sigh...

Smile...

And say...

"I'm home."

It only took a year and a half. Not too bad.

Keep Me Quarantined

The heart is encased in a cage for a reason.

You fall in love and are fallen in love with,
and you think you know emotion?

There are days when I step off the bus,
look at strangers on the street and
love them so badly I can't breathe.

No one knows what they're dealing with,
when they talk to me.
They laugh and it catches in my mind,
each neuron sparks in applause.
Better to be kept a stranger;
they're only flashes,
don't you see that affection breaks me?

It invades my bloodstream, dilutes,
and maybe that's why sometimes I fall down,
I carry too much of everyone inside me,
I can't always find my own cells.

I've loved the world until I ached,
all awe and missed opportunities.

If each thought was a ring in your ears,
none of you could go anywhere
without bells sounding with each footstep.

Most days I can keep locked up,
but there are times when
each bar bends stubbornly backwards;
my bones can't keep me safe,
and I am all raw flesh exposed to the wind.

I love too much.