Slurdge Squickle...

There's three things you need to know about me before we can begin:

1) I do not have sex dreams.  Which isn't to say that I don't have sexy dreams.  It's just that the actual acts of sex never manage to happen in the dream.  I've had many, many dreams where I'm about to have sex; more than I could count, in fact.  But something always interrupts at the last possible second, and the dream then flows on to something else, and I wake the next morning and remember almost having sex the night before.  (I've always assumed the reason for this to be that there is just something about the act of having sex that my mind simply cannot recreate for me, and knowing this, it always comes up with some last-minute coitus interruptus to avoid having to cross that particular body-mind barrier.)  I have never had a "wet" dream.

2) Far more than any other form of art, entertainment, or media, graphic depictions of rape disturb and upset me.  I can watch graphic, bloody, violent horror movies all night every night and not be disturbed in the slightest.  But the second a dramatic movie suddenly veers into a rape scene, I know I will be having nightmares and disturbing daytime fugues for the next week.  It doesn't have to be violent; it just has to be forced sex.  I don't know why I respond this way.  I was not raped as a child (far from it, I was sexually adventurous), nor as an adult for that matter, nor have I ever witnessed anyone actually being raped.  But something about forcing sex onto someone against their will, something about twisting that highest of all loves and pleasures to its darkest apotheosis, repulses and scars me every single time I experience it.  Every single time in my life that I have encountered graphic rape scenes in movies, or read them in books, I have become very upset and traumatized.  For several days, or weeks, I will have a hard time getting the images out of my mind.  And I will feel sad and scared and small every time I have to see them in my head again, almost as if I am reliving this moment - this fictional moment that did not actually happen to anyone at all, much less to myself.  As if I am trapped in my own fictional hell.

3) I am currently reading Moore's Neonomicon.  Some of you will understand the significance of this.  The rest of you are lucky.

+          +          +

Last night I dreamt that I was attending the upcoming national moot (chaos magickian retreat).  Late one night, after a long, hard day of black magick, I went back upstairs to my hotel room to go to sleep.  I found my roommate waiting for me there, getting ready for bed herself.  She was young (and she looked a lot younger even than she was, almost disturbingly so), blonde, very pale skin.  To my waking mind now, I do not believe I had ever seen this person before, and as far as I am aware, she is entirely ephemeral.  But in the dream, she was a close friend of mine; perhaps a temple-mate.  So the familiar, intimate, affectionate ways we touched as we orbited each other around the hotel room getting ready for bed, did not seem unusual or in any way out-of-the-ordinary for us.

But something changed this time.  Somehow, the friendly affection we showed one another began to feel deeper, and more intense.  Being unafraid of the other's touch suddenly became wanting to be touched.  I don't know how it was communicated, but we both knew we wanted each other, and we knew it was going to happen now.

There was holding, and cuddling, and running of hands along outlines of form.  Layers began to get peeled off.  Bare flesh was marveled at, and taken by the handful.  Our mouths grew sore from kissing.  My eyes were closed but I could see and my fingers were inside her and I could feel the wetheat on my fingers hands wrists arms legs and

We were in the water now - dark water dark night where?

A swimming pool, it seems.  After hours.  All the lights off, water black, can't see the bottom can't see ourselves.  We're not swimming.  We're floating upright.  No need to swim, the water holds us up like gentle caressing hands of Mother.  It is warm.

We're completely naked, this girl and I, wrapping arms and legs around each other in the dark water.  I can feel myself throbbing against her under the water.  I can feel her licking me all over under the water, while I am holding her and kissing her and running my hands all over her.

Suddenly, she takes a fistful of my hair and then slips me inside of her.  After, there is not the usual motions, no thrusting, no rocking back and forth.  We are not fucking.  She is pressed against me, sucking me.  I can feel her undulations as she sucks me inside of her, rippling up and down the length of me.  The pleasure of this sensation is indescribable.  I look down and can see through the water clear as glass at the mouth that is surrounding me, pursing lips sucking up and down.  Please understand, this is not hyperbole or poetic license in my description - what I saw was not a vulva, it was a mouth.

I looked up from this scene of mounting horror to find her young, beautiful face now leering at me with an impossibly wide smile, and black eyes of terror madness.  At the same time, I felt the will to resist being drained from me, as the astoundingly pleasurable sensations emanating from our conjoined bodies suddenly intensified beyond anything I had ever known.  I recall the sensation of licking tongues caressing my entire sex all over; wand and orbs inside and outside, it was the Hell of All Flesh.

I wanted to scream, but her tongues were in my mouth down my throat, writhing fat worms, wrapping my tongue, stroking it sucking it.  I felt tongues sliding along under me, caressing and licking the underside black door searching for purchase finding entrance.  Licking me opening me impaling me gods pleasure fire fear I can still hear the sounds as they plunged in and out of me still feel the fire fire gods heat no no no no

I remember wanting to fight her, to stop her, to scream, anything.  But I couldn't make my body respond at all.  The pleasure was overwhelming to the point of paralysis.  The last image I saw, as we began to descend beneath the still surface of the water, was our bodies' intersection, one last time.  It was a star.  Or had become a star.  Her occulted mouth had split open eight ways from center - each ray of flesh a prehensile tongue that squicked and squiggled around my naked body, wrapping me and pulling me and licking me and draining me and taking me down down down and in the center of that eight-rayed star of inhuman flesh, a pink, pulsating mouth, with row upon row of concentric rings of tiny pink tentacle teeth, sucking me down, pulling me in, eating me raw, draining the nuclear fire from my very atoms, returning me to the black void of the bottomless unending sea.

+          +          +

It must be Spring.

Love's Hallows All...

In the cold November night
She had given us a fright
So we ran arm-in-arm away
Running towards forgotten days
And the sorrow of that
    woe-begotten light

We had told her what we'd done
And she'd said I'm not her son
Then we'd bolted out the door
Left your bootprints on the floor
And were gone before she'd
    leveled out the gun

The shots rang high and loud
And I swear that we were proud
To have made the Beast so pissed
To be the Devils atop her list
Of all the evil Hell hath spat
    on this gray shroud
  
Into the Night we ran and played
For we had met our Judgement Day
Burned it down with light and love
Killed the monster, came the dove
And forever on we knew
    we'd have our say

There's no one could tell us "No"
If our Way wound to or fro
Our life at last was ours to live
And Death our gift to give
So we'd return for her at sign
    of year's first snow

And return for her we did
Deep in the cellar where she'd hid
Her thrusting cross and sobbing loud
"In Jesus' name I cast you out!"
For all the good that useless
    trinket never did

She wept and screamed and prayed
Hoping she'd at last be saved
From this night that wouldn't end
And her faith that wouldn't bend
And these children with their teeth
    like razor blades

We ripped and tore and fed
While she cried and shat and bled
Until her flesh began to cool
Her life now just a crimson pool
Puddled under her like Satan's
    marriage bed

We left her there on that stone floor
Behind us closed and locked the door
Our mother's blood across your face
Looked to me a veil of lace
In all our endless life I've never
    loved you more

Genetics...

At the Great Frederick Fair, there is a tent down by the tractor displays that sells old-fashioned candies.

And every year, I go there and buy a roll of Butter Rum-flavored Lifesavers, because they remind me of you.  You used to keep a roll in your car, and sometimes you would give me one, and so they remind me of you.  The version of you that raised me, and loved me, and schooled me hard, and whom I thought of as Father, with all the meek adoration of an ascetic at the feet of his Creator.

As silly as it sounds, I have to get them every year, and I love them, and would be wounded if I couldn't find them, because those little sweet rings of amber candy remind me - they remind me that I am your son.

A Great Day In America...

So proud of my country today.  We are one step closer to becoming that nation we always believe ourselves to be.  It's a good feeling.

And it's a strange feeling.  I'm suddenly all-too aware today of how rare a moment like this is.  The good guys won.  People's inherent humanity has been recognized, and enshrined into our law.  The evil has been banished from the land.  It feels like it should ALWAYS be like this.  But it almost never is.

Sorry to be so melancholy about it.  I'm really ecstatic, truly.  Just wish we could feel this more often.

We are a better nation now - a better people - than we were yesterday.

Here is hoping, sincerely, profoundly, that the trend continues.

#LoveWins

Her Heart's Apocalypse...

She's
an extraordinary girl
In an ordinary world
And she can't seem to get away 

He
lacks the courage in his mind
Like a child left behind
Like a pet left in the rain 

She's all alone again
Wiping the tears from her eyes
Some days he feels like dying
She gets so sick of crying 

She
sees the mirror of herself
An image she wants to sell
To anyone willing to buy 

He
steals the image in her kiss
From her heart's apocalypse
From the one called Whatsername 

She's all alone again
Wiping the tears from her eyes
Some days he feels like dying
She gets so sick of crying 

She's all alone again
Wiping the tears from her eyes
Some days he feels like dying
Some days it's not worth trying
Now that they both are finding
She gets so sick of crying 

She's
an extraordinary girl 

an extraordinary girl 

          -"Extraordinary Girl"
           Green Day, American Idiot

Final Summation...

Goddammit I hate memory sometimes.

And everything it leads to.  Nostalgia.  Reminiscence.  A concrete sense of Self.  Rambling, confessional blog posts about supposed childhood sexual traumas.  And so forth.

After all that, after my whole humiliating confessional frenzy here in my last few posts (holy crap, was that all the way back in February??), I have to admit now that I'm not entirely sure my memory of these early experiences is even correct.  And I've wanted to write and post this explanation for a good while now, because those posts are still sitting there on the front page, like a severed head at a dinner party; but I've been alternately too busy, or, mostly, too embarrassed by the whole ordeal to want to return to it.  But I can't just leave that shit up there for anyone to read without any context or resolution.  I have to put this to bed.

So here's how it all started.  I was driving to work that February morning, and there was a discussion on the radio of how children respond to parental abuse.  I don't remember what it was exactly, but something they said reminded me of this childhood friend (I'm going to start calling him "Bill" just so that I have a name to refer to him by).  I hadn't thought about Bill in many, many years.  I remembered some of our experiences together, and I remembered his big, angry father.  And that's when I suddenly made the connection and realized, "Oh!  Bill was abused by his father!"  And everything else just followed from that.

I still believe that to be true; I believe Bill was abused (at least mentally and emotionally, if not physically or sexually) by his father.  But the rest of it, I must admit now, I am significantly less sure about.  I know that Bill and I "played doctor," but I don't remember all that we did.  I don't actually remember how far our sexual play went. And, I am forced to admit to myself and all of you now, I don't actually remember who suggested what.  I thought I did at the time, but I've since realized that's not true.  It was just too long ago now for me to remember it clearly.  It was so long ago that even the things I do remember clearly are suspect.  And through my research I discovered that I would be forced to admit something else, something much worse:  it is entirely possible that I am the one who abused him.

Reading through literature on the subject, I was surprised to find out that one of the more common, and yet least often discussed, forms of childhood sexual abuse is to simply educate a child about sex too much at too early an age.  (It had never even occurred to me before my research that this could possibly be considered a form of abuse.)  Sex is one of the most complicated and complex of all human interactions, and a 4 or 5 year-old child is simply too underdeveloped to be able to fully understand it (hell, a lot of adults are too underdeveloped to be able to fully understand it, for that matter); and so therefore giving a child that age too much information on the subject can often lead them to act out behaviors that they are not able to fully understand, process, or deal with in a meaningful way.  That's the basic idea.

My mother's policy was that if I was old enough to ask the question, then I was old enough to hear the answer.  And she was always very quick to let me know that if I ever had any questions at all, she would do her best to try to answer them truthfully and completely.  And she lived by that statement.  And I was a very curious boy.  I had a lot of questions.  And she answered every one she could.  So I remember that throughout my childhood, basically until high school, I always knew more about sex (among many other things) than any of my friends or classmates seemed to.  I was proud of that, actually.  It made me feel grown-up.  It made me feel strong.  And superior.  (Realizing now, as I type this, that this may have something to do with why I value intelligence so highly, in both myself and others.)

But in terms of my memories of my experiences with Bill, that throws everything into a new light.  I only actually remember one thing we did that was definitely Bill's idea, and while that was a little dirty, it also wasn't exactly sexual, either (we were naked, but there was no touching); it would fall squarely in the category of "normative childhood sexual play."  I don't actually remember what else we may have done, or who might've suggested any of it.  But I know that in my memories of all the other boys (and some girls) who came after Bill, I was definitely the aggressor.

The hard part to admit, is that when I suddenly realized that morning that Bill had been abused by his father, I didn't then "realize" that he had actually been acting out his abuse on me, as I originally wrote.  No, the truth was that I actually just assumed that was the case, and didn't recognize that I was making an assumption.  "OMG, Bill was abused by his father!  What do abused children do?  They act out that same abuse on others.  He must've been doing that to me when we played doctor!  So that's why I then went on to do it others; I was acting out his abuse on me!  That's where it all started!  It makes perfect sense."  And it does make perfect sense.  But that doesn't automatically make it true, either.

I still don't know what happened back then, and I probably never will.  But I have to admit that the much more likely scenario seems to be that I was actually a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but the abuser was my mother, not Bill.  And it seems much more likely that I was acting out my abuse on him (and all the other boys and girls that came after him) rather than the other way around.

Bill moved away before we even hit puberty.  I haven't seen or heard from him since I was a child.  I have no idea what his life has been like.

If you're still out there, "Bill," I hope you're okay.  And if you're not... all I can say is, I'm so, so sorry.

It wasn't my fault.  I was only a child.

Twenty-twenty...

Why am I telling you any of this?!

This isn't a diary, for fuck's sake.  This is a MEGAPHONE.

Jesus christ, I'm such an asshole.

Apparent Exaggerations...

Still need more time to write out the full story/explanation, but I did learn something that requires an immediate update.

I knew that the language I used yesterday didn't feel quite right.  It seemed inflammatory, and loaded with a ton of connotations that were not actually part of the experience I was trying to communicate.  But what other language was I supposed to use?  How else was I supposed to describe it?

Well, finally getting around last night to doing some very preliminary research into the topic of child-on-child sexual abuse, revealed the rather obvious fact that I'm not the only person in the world who has ever had experiences like these, and that as such, there is already a whole lexicon available to me to describe it, if I had only bothered to look.

I learned right off the bat that I was not, in fact, molested.  I was not abused.  What happened to me would be characterized as "Normative Childhood Sexual Play," even if it was a little more advanced than most.  The difference being, I was never coerced, or threatened, or manipulated, or made to do anything I didn't want to do.  All this friend of mine did was suggest the ideas; I went along with them willingly, even excitedly.  And I enjoyed them completely, to the point that I then went on to suggest them to all my other friends for the next 20 years.

What I went through was a normal part of growing up that pretty much everyone goes through at some point.  The big difference for me, was that it happened to me about 10 years earlier than the average.  I was regularly having sex in elementary school, and I was having the kind of sex that most other people don't even know about, much less start trying to engage in, until middle school or high school.  (Oddly, I steadfastly maintained my virginity, however technical, until I was much older; I think having so much sex as a child made my virginity seem more precious to me somehow, and I was determined to save it until I found someone I really loved.)

I still think my friend was abused, though.  It's the only explanation I have right now for how he could be so sexually aggressive, and adventurous, and knowledgeable, at such a young age.  And so it's still possible that, from his point of view, he was acting out from his history of abuse.  But whether he was attempting to abuse me or not (who knows how he would've responded if I'd said no), I wasn't abused.  I went willingly, and loved every minute of it.

And while I feel a lot better now, knowing that I don't actually have to wear the "childhood sexual abuse victim" label for the rest of my life, there's still a lot left here that I need to unpack.  I'm still not sure what all this means, or what I'm supposed to do with this new information.

We Are What We Remember We Are...

I realized this morning, that I was - rather technically, I must caveat - molested by one of my very first childhood friends.  And that this series of events was directly responsible for shaping a very large portion of my personality; of who I still am today.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this.  There's way too much story there to be able to tell it all right now.  But I had to at least get this much, the realization of it, the acknowledgment of it, out of me and into existence, before I forgot it again, or subsumed it in some other way.

I feel like I'm supposed to be upset about this.  But I don't think I feel particularly upset about it, at least not yet.  (There is a small part of me, however, that is upset at myself for not being upset about it, for whatever that's worth.)  I'd always remembered - and still remember - our "playing doctor" as being entirely consensual.  (As much as it could be, at least.  We were about the same age at the time, so technically, legally, neither of us could consent; but we were also the only ones involved.  So how does that work?)  So, I've never felt - and still don't feel - victimized in any way.  I feel no enmity or ill-will towards this individual, and never have.  And the parts of my Self that I can now suddenly attribute to my early friendship with this person (at least, the ones I know about) are not things that I've ever felt particularly bad about or wished to be different.  Nor have I ever felt a need to investigate their root, or determine their origin.

Which I guess is part of why it feels so strange to suddenly know where they all come from.  I received an answer to an absolutely massive question, before I had ever even asked it in the first place.  There's an almost vertigo to it; the sensation of it makes you dizzy.  A memory you've had for almost 40 years, and suddenly, from out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, one tiny little detail you'd left behind somewhere along the way comes back into focus; and it fits like a keystone into place with all the other memories it connects to:  that time, that place, those people; filling in a hole you never knew was there; and now you see it all so clearly, understanding it all for the very first time, after 40 years; and that realization leads to another, which leads to another, cascading down through your history like a line of dominoes, until suddenly four decades of Self have been re-written.  You understand yourself now in a new, better, more complete way, a more whole way, than you ever have before.  But you also know now, that you're not who you thought you were; and you never have been.  So, then, who are you?

That's kind of a lot to handle when it all hits you in a matter of seconds while you're driving down the highway late to work on a Monday morning.

So, yeah.  This one's gonna take a while to unpack, I guess.

Gloria...

It's a stupid song
Hearing it come on the music station in the restaurant
after the thumping House music that preceded it
I laugh
because it's an old song

a stupid song
so familiar song
My eyes close heavy, rebellious
all I can hear is the song
it comes back to me in the wave pattern
vibrating the memory loose
In the back of the old station wagon
Vista Cruiser
with all the other kids and cousins
on our way to Summer camp
windows down Summer wind lovingly whipping us
with salt sand scrub-pine lashes
making fun of the drivers behind us
SCREAMING this song

Top of our lungs
All of ourselves lost in THIS SONG

This stupid song

that I loved so much so long ago

playing overhead in this stupid hipster sandwich shop

with the sudden ocean-salt taste of these tears

being back there in that Summer

flying to Adventure in the Vista Cruiser

Nothing but open road ahead of us
As far as the eye can see

Screen Door Summer...

first days of Summer
early childhood
first, second, third year of school
when Summers first started to mean something

Free.

I am Free.

i remember
i remember those days
i remember that feeling
only remember
i remember one morning
early
seven or eight
both of us
myself and the day
just starting to heat up

i remember finding our front door open
wide open
propped open
because we'd just bought a new screen door
our first
to let the Summer in
i can still remember the sweet smell
of the soft blond wood frame of our new door
blending with the scent of suburban Summer wafting through
cut grass and pool water
dandelion and hot asphalt

i remember the sparkles of dust twinkling
through the enormous beam of radiant Sun
pouring through our open front door
flooding through our new screen door
pooling in two golden domino blocks
on the orange shag carpet

i remember lying down then
right there on the carpet
right there at our open front door
in my pj's
in that bath of light
and doing nothing else
doing nothing at all

i remember it was so warm
so comfortable
so wonderful
so perfect
i didn't want to leave
i didn't have to leave
i could lay there as long as i wanted
i had nothing else to do
all i had to do was whatever i wanted
and what i wanted was to lay right there
and let the blissful Summer Sun caress me all over
until there was nothing else

i remember i felt free then
absolutely felt it
for the first time
a sort-of tingle in the belly
like falling
or flying
the exhilaration of that new-found freedom
knowing i was free
knowing this was only the beginning
knowing there were months more of this left
months more to look forward to
the upwelling joy that knowledge brings
the surge of happiness at having nothing better to do
than drown in a pool of starlight

i remember recognizing
even then
that there was something special happening there
i didn't know what it was
not then
but i knew there wouldn't be many days like that
and there haven't been
this is the only one i can remember
anymore

but i'm glad i remember
it feels good to remember
it dulls the ache
left from wondering
if i'll ever get to feel that way again

In Our Rags Of Light...

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

        -"If It Be Your Will"
         Leonard Cohen, Various Positions
 

It Turns Reason Into Ashes...

They sent me out from Santa Fe
    to try and find his trail
They think that I'm the only one
    who can bring him back to jail
This star says I'm a lawman
    this gun has seen me through
And though my heart is heavy
    I've got a job to do

You see he's such a proud man
    who never learned to crawl
But a good man turned gunslinger
    is the meanest man of all
He killed a US Marshall
    and for that he's gonna pay
And I'm the lonely lawman
    who's on his trail today

There was a time he fought for truth
    and on the side of right
Until the only girl he loved
    was killed one fateful night
I know his heart was shattered
    as he turned the barren sod
And laid away her body
    commending it to God

Then he vowed a vengeance
    to those who took her life
And every notch upon his gun
    a tear shed for his wife
But vengeance is like wildfire
    sweepin' through the wood
It turns reason into ashes
    and burns out all the good

Now I can't help but remember
    as I trail this lonesome man
I don't believe while we were boys
    I won any race we ran
For you see his face resembles mine
    we talk somewhat the same
And though we walk in different worlds
    we both bear our daddy's name...
  
              -"The Lawman"
               Billy Walker
               listen on YouTube
    

Trying To Hold On To What He Needs...

When a man loves a woman,
    he can't keep his mind on nothing else
He'll trade the world
    for the good thing he's found
If she is bad, he can't see it,
    she can do no wrong
Turn his back on his best friend
    if he put her down

When a man loves a woman,
    he'll spend his very last dime
Tryin' to hold on
    to what he needs
He'd give up all his comforts,
    sleep out in the rain
If she said that's the way
    it ought to be

Well, this man loves a woman
I gave you everything I had
Tryin' to hold on to your high class love
Baby, please don't treat me bad

When a man loves a woman,
    down deep in his soul
She can bring him
    such misery
If she plays him for a fool,
    he's the last one to know
Lovin' eyes
    can't ever see

When a man loves a woman,
    he can do her no wrong
He can never own
    some other girl
Yes, when a man loves a woman
    I know exactly how he feels
'Cause baby, baby, baby,
    you're my world

When a man loves a woman
    I know exactly how he feels
Baby, baby, baby,
    you're my world
  
    -"When A Man Loves A Woman"
     Percy Sledge

We Become Merlin, Lord Of The Geeks...

the Man is no longer a Man
in this day and age
he is a strange Middle-Aged Boy
an Aging Adolescent
hair going grey
with the hours whittled away
on Xbox video games

the Man that is a Man
is of a bygone age
The Real Man in the films of old
Age-ed Anachronism
strong and proud and brave
standing tall to face the day
and keep the wolves at bay

that I am a Man-who-is-not-a-Man
a product of this modern age
has vexed my Heart and Soul
my Arrested Ascension
how can I always play
when a Real Man works all day
but really who's to say?

the Boy is also a Man
in our culture at this stage
in truth both young and old
Advancing Adolescence
we get to play our lives away
yet still have bills to pay
the balance of the middle way

I am a Boy and I am a Man
by internal and external age
work only to play is my road
an Admirable Aspiration
that I get to live My Way
a little boyhood every day
is the great gift of this age

Fuck it
I'll be okay

What Am I When I Am Not Me...

they're not nightmares
anymore
and i should think that would make a difference
but it doesn't
my dreams are a plague
infecting every part of me
every vessel, every organ
every nerve and every cell
every night

a Wonka riverboat ride down the rabbit hole into Madness
and mixed metaphors
a kaleidoscopic psychic calliope

of psychedelic psychosis

i remember when dreams used to comfort
bring relief and restitution
or delightful reminiscence
or strange beauty
but my dreams are now a plague
they exhaust me
all vivid surreal visions
          of mundane interactions

with a world I do not recognize
that feels uncomfortably
intimately
Familiar

waking in those peaceful hours of pre- and post-dawn
that peace is lost on me
lying there, almost paralyzed
i do not remember my dreams
so much as i
Recover from them

Soured...

I killed a man in my sleep last night.

strange albino maskface
cueball head coated in alabaster
greasepaint of a clown
skin white as the sharpened teeth
tearing through a bloodred slit of mouth
that wound the only color in his face

he was keeping me there
in the darkred room with no windows
holding me there in fear
terrorizing me
torturing me
delighting in it
consuming my fear like a drug
lusting after my pain
pleasuring himself with it

It had been a very bad day for me.

but then he brought Her in
so She could see what he had done
witness the mess he was making of me
brought Her in so I could see
the pain and the fear twisting Her beauty

but then he lost himself
in his lust and hunger for our degradation
he leaned down
face to "face"
pressed his sickening skin to mine
to whisper in my ear
all the things he was about to do to Her

He shouldn't have.

my hands were on his head
fists closed around ears
and pulled
thumbs went into eyes
and sank
and his bloodred mouth opened in glorious tortured screaming
my teeth clamped down
tearing into his bottom lip
with everything i had
i pushed and pulled and tore and ruined
eyeballs popped wet and cold like rotten grapes
ears gave in came off ripping strips of cheek revealing bone
lip tore down down down over chin and neck and red flowed free
free as i felt
free as i now was
as we now were


and i looked to Her
worried for us both
for so many things
and I saw Her
standing shocked
and there was no more fear in Her eyes
and there was no more love in Her smile
there was only the dumbfounded awe
of the newly awakened

all i felt
was justified

Goodbye, Mork...

I had to add just this one more, for posterity.  It's just too perfect.

Carpe Diem, My Captain...

I really don't understand why the death of Robin Williams is hitting me so hard.  As shocked as I was to hear of his death, I was (and still remain) almost as shocked by the depth of my reaction to it.  I mean, sure I've felt saddened by the death of other celebrities before.  I remember being particularly saddened by the death of Heath Ledger, and more recently, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  But I've never been moved to tears like this before.  Celebrities are, by nature, almost fictional characters to us themselves; always removed from our actual lives by cameras and screens.  (I think that might have something to do with why it feels so strange whenever you see one in person - it's almost like TV or a movie coming to life!)  And since we don't really know them personally, there's only so much their death can move us.

Or so I thought.

I don't know why this one hurts so much.  Maybe it's because I grew up with him?  Because I've enjoyed him so much for my entire life?  I remember the rainbow Mork suspenders I had when I was five years old.  (My first cosplay, I guess?)  I remember seeing Popeye in the theaters with my parents just a few years later, and loving it completely.  I have the same memories of Good Morning, Vietnam.  And Hook.  (Oh, Peter Pan!  Why did you have to grow up?!)  I watched Mrs. Doubtfire and Jumanji over and over, just because of the way it delighted both the boy and the man in me at the same time.

And I've seen Dead Poets Society so many times I can practically quote the whole movie.  I don't know when I'll be able to watch that one again now.  At the very least, I know I'll never be able to see it the same way again.

Maybe it's because it was apparently a suicide?  It's possible.  Might be the connection to my own mother's death.  But I haven't reacted this way to other suicides or overdoses, so why this one?  Maybe it's just the fact that suicide adds that final crack of heartbreak to the story.  We didn't just lose one of the greats forever; we lost him to himself, to his own demons, to his own sickness.  It feels like there must've been something that could've saved him.  It feels like it didn't have to end this way.  And it touches us all because, let's face it, haven't each and every one of us been there, or somewhere close to it, at least once in our lives?  But if we could survive it, then why couldn't he?

I think it's true that there are few things more sad in this life, than a funny man, with a broken heart.  His mentor, Jonathan Winters, knew that only too well.  But he survived it anyways.  It's too bad he couldn't be there to help his friend, who clearly needed him more than anyone knew.

Like so, so many of us today, I feel the need to pour my heart out to the memory of this funny man, who's been there my whole life, in some vain and desperate attempt to figure out just what in the fuck it means to live without him now.

Below, I've collected some of my favorites that other people have been sharing today.  Some are funny, some are poignant, some are heart-breaking.  But they all made me feel something.  And that's helped, at least a little.

Here's hoping it can do the same for any of you.

Every time I hear a siren I still say "that's my ride." Thank you Robin Williams. I wish your ride had not arrived.
— John Hodgman (@hodgman) August 11, 2014

Spontaneous tribute appearing at the bench in Boston, made famous from the scene in Good Will Hunting.

We mourn the loss of our friend Robin Williams, who always made us laugh and smile. pic.twitter.com/UOY8LTjVRA
— Sesame Street (@sesamestreet) August 11, 2014

"Robin Williams is not dead, he is just waiting in the jungle until somebody rolls a 5 or 8." -testingonetwothreetesting, via imgur



"One of the funniest people alive died from sadness." - chili1179, via imgur

Nanu nanu.
— SarcasticRover (@SarcasticRover) August 11, 2014

Come on in Rob. I got you.
— Jesus Christ (@jesus) August 11, 2014

The first comment on this image, from NancyNevada, I think says it all:  "When Peter Pan dies, don't tell us to grow up."

Goodbye pal.  Thanks for everything.
— Louis C.K. (@louisck) August 12, 2014

This was reportedly posted to Disney's FB page this morning.  Heart-wrenching.

"But doctor, I AM Pagliacci." That's the only way this makes sense. Can't stand thinking of him being that sad. #RIPRobinWilliams
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) August 11, 2014

And finally, this is how I always want to remember him:



Your barbaric YAWP! was heard around the world, sir, and inspired MILLIONS.

And you will always be my captain.

Centurion...

try hard as we might
there was no
ignoring
the scratching
coming from the walls
and there was no
reckoning
to be had
with the things
crawling on our skin
but we laid there
together
all we had
each other
and my arm was around you
and your head was on my chest
as you softly slept
and in your dreams
the storm must've turned
the scratching of the things
finding its way through
the tempest inside
and i heard you
start to mewl
and whine
and cry out
from the dark place
down where your dreaming
had taken you
and so i raised my hand
from its home on your hip
and softly
smoothed your hair
away from your troubled
beautiful face
so near to mine
and i cupped your head gently
and i loved you
and you were quiet again and

everything

was

perfect