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I saw her today. Three days after we officially were over. I was taking a walk, one which would have taken me by her house, not by design, but necessity. Walking up the front sidewalk and into the house with sofa seat cushions she went. I thought all of that was going down tomorrow night, not tonight. I was trying to be strong. Had been trying all day, but seeing her almost brought me to my knees. Carrying sofa seat cushions is not usually the most romantic image, but she was a vision doing it. I guess she will now have better furniture in her new place. That will be good and comforting. I took a detour and went down through the park and around the golf course so as not to create weirdness or thoughts that I may be stalking. I wanted just as much to run up and hug her. To help bring the sofa in. To have a glass of water. To tell her I love her. To pretend like we were still together. Like I would be sitting on those sofas soon… but maybe soon.

drunk with his muse

I don’t know what little readership I have here, but I kind of wanted to tell everyone of my sins. Given my ambivalence on whether God exists and all, I know not who to confess my sins to, so I thought it would be best to admit my sins publicly, and if everyone else could hear it, surely God could hear it too.
It is 4 AM on the morning and Grier and I have been broken up for some 10 hours now. My parents have come in town this weekend for a visit, and emotional rescue of sorts, and things have not worked out as well as I had hoped. I awake a few minutes ago with cold arms and tried to warm them and get back to sleep. The split second that it took to decide to put my arms back under the covers was enough, however, to let in the reality of what has gone on.
G is gone. She told me today maybe it could work in the future, but it definitely cannot work right now. That we needed a clean break in order to work on the things that we individually need to work on. Hers may be finding out if someone else is more suited for her than I am and I imagine some other things. Mine are much more.
I have been bad, very bad. I have kissed another woman once early in our relationship, during the time G says, and I somewhat agree, was the good time in our relationship. It was my mistake. I should never have done it, and will never again. At the time, however, it only proved how deep my love for her had gotten so quickly. The kiss was awkward, and quick, and I immediately felt guilt and great swells of love for G. I vowed then that I never would do such a thing again, and I have not.
I thought G was the ONE though. I thought she was the one from the moment I drove to her sisters apt on June 21, 2003 after being out with my friend, because I could not bear not to see her for another minute, and we sat on the porch and talked and smoked cigarettes for much of the night, and I saw no less than 5 shooting stars.
In the midst of a bout of unemployment and indecision about a big move, I fell head over heels for a girl from Spartanburg, SC. I think most of you know how in love I was, and am. There’s another part to the story though.
My other sins were much bigger though. I know many of you who I talk to regularly have heard me talk of “drunken belligerence” directed toward G. I don’t know where it came from and I am not sure still. However, I think mostly it came from low feelings about myself, feelings of not being worthy of a woman like G, of fear that she would leave me one day and to take control of that, I should hasten the departure.
I had a dark side, an evil side, and it was fueled by alcohol. “Drunken belligerence” is euphemistic. I would get drunk and fall to pieces and start to curse her, her family, her friends. As she told me yesterday, I would call her a “whore and slut” and would generally denigrate the things that were closest to her.
She became fearful of me, and while it never came to physical violence, I understand if she felt that it could one day. I understand why she wanted to run, and I guess I understand why she finally did yesterday.
I don’t fully know why I started or continued this behavior. I know that drinking had something to do with it, especially in great quantities. I also know that she tried to love me through it all, to fix it through love, and I am grateful for the attempt. I am not grateful for, or even respectful of myself, for not taking that love for what it was and making the change happen. I am sick tonight with guilt and regret. How could I shit on the thing I had waited all of my adult life for? How could I have shit on this woman who I consider to be the one? Why didn’t I stop earlier before it came to this? Why didn’t I stop earlier out of simple humanity? I feel so evil inside. I still feel so unworthy of a woman as good as her. I want to be better, to be made whole again. I want to feel happiness, simple and innocent happiness, and peace.
I am writing all of this because I cannot figure out any other way to get back to sleep. My mind is racing with all of these thoughts and they are keeping me awake. I didn’t know what else to do. I am at a loss, but am tired.
To G, and God, and all of you reading or listening. Find it in your hearts to forgive me. Find it in your prayers a little word for me, in hopes that I will be a better man, so that I might one day find again many things that I have lost, and especially the one big thing… and that I won’t squander it all if my search is fruitful. I repent. I repent. I repent. I repent…
Bryan

Oh, these August babies! All hot in their mother’s womb. Like a vacation in hell, but you like it. I’m sure that the croupier’s hair is teased to hide the horns beneath. I’ve spent too much. Now in the bedroom, I’m thinking of you. I’m thinking of you a lot. When I imagine that Mississippi river basin out there, the one I saw when going to bed this morning, you are walking across it in a cotton dress. Sweaty and hair sticking to your neck, you are walking across it toward me this time. I feel you in my heart in this flat place. I feel you there intensely. I hope it is not just imagination. That is you? Cotton dress? Sweat and hair? You are walking toward me? Or is it away? Is the heat that rises, mixed with river water, creating mirages on the horizon? My kingdom for you to be here for just 5 minutes.

My baby just called me,
drunk after the party,
to say she loves me
and misses me, and
just after I had
fallen asleep in
this old new bed
that has yet to be
christened again and
it woke me up and
I wish she would
do it again and
again and again.

Out tonight,
the neighbors are having a party,
and all up and down
this street are cars,
parked where yours did once
and I came home worried
about potential blockage
to the back drive
after watching Charade
with Shannon at the new house that
he and his wife and new baby
have in Reynoldstown.
I drank a beer
a couple of gin and tonics
had a burger
a Coke and a movie and
at midnight find myself back here
with a picture of you
floating in the air…
just simply floating.
I put on a shirt that
you bought me with
a shirt that
you bought me on top
like a double hug
tonight because you
were not here. Burger,
gin and tonic, beer. Stop.
Western Union and Pony Express.
Your quackery is on the shelf.
It’s all gonna be alright.
Still the love of your life.
It’s all gonna be alright.
Beatles playing cards.
It’s all gonna be alright.
Western shirt and empty bed.
It’s all gonna be alright.
When I imagine dreams,
and they will come,
you will be floating there,
just above the horizon,
just simply floating.
Your heart will be a house
and you will hold it in your hand.
The sign out front
will not be for rent
or for sale,
it will just say for me
to move back in.
House,
shirt,
cards,
comfort,
and all.

Tonight is nothing,
I am supposed to be nothing too,
or at least happy, and
to be sure,
this house is really nothing,
a nothing you once thanked me so much for,
but nothing can bring this nothing back.
Nothing acting on nothing.
The orange glow from the pub sign
atop the refrigerator with
the ice maker is nothing, and
the picture of you applying
mascara in the bathroom on the hall,
your bathroom, is, too, now nothing.
The oven stench from tonight’s
frozen pizza is nothing, and I fear that
where I sit here, in this room, and
write this is nothing, and I too, and
so is this nothing as well?
The times we made love on the living room floor,
atop a flea market throw will soon be nothing, and
only later will other lovers hear maybe an echo,
but ultimately echoes are nothing. Ultimately,
the Florida room is nothing,
and the 5000 packs of
cigarette smoke there is nothing,
as smoke always is.
This house is smoke,
this house is burning,
this house will soon be nothing
but a spot two blocks from where
you chose once, in my absence,
to carve our initials for the ages
into a mound of concrete,
and to then come back here,
when here was something.

I am sitting here
waiting on you to return from
a gender exclusive affair on
the other end of the street, and
every car passing turns down the one street and
continues down the other and
at times I convince myself, that
tonight you’ve decided not to come back.
You told me yesterday
you were leaving,
not me but here, this
place that we found so perfect.
You needed an adventure, one
in which you hoped to find yourself, and
today we went and looked at
particularly adventuresome spots.
Tonight I am waiting,
after pizza, water, orange juice, cigarettes,
and the glass door tilted in,
and the glass windows tilted out,
and the screen door shut,
and the bugs humming –
all cars make the turn and continue straight,
sitting and smoking,
I hear clanking of keys
and think it is you,
but it is just ghost,
as the whole place soon will be,
little by little,
until nothing of matter
of either of us will be here.

It’s 6:30 AM on the morning after our little world together first showed a crack and began to crumble. A cigarette and a glass of water. Robert leaves later today.
I’ll get back in bed and try to hold it all together with an embrace, for a little while.