week 12: children

 these were originally done for a prompt from last year, it was burst.


i've mentioned this a few times over the years that at one point i was dating a single mother. it was really a no win situation for everyone involved, i admit that i had a large part in that. i wasn't ready for an adult relationship, and i got involved in a relationship that i thought i could handle. as it turned out, for my part i was screwed up on my priorities and the whole thing really lasted a few longer than it ought to have. in fact it should have ended a few weeks into it when she tried to end it because, well, that doesn't matter. what happened was that i said that it was my decision to make whether or not i wanted to get involved.

at the time i really felt that if i let it end like that so soon for that reason alone i would be some kind of
asshole, i really did go back and forth and finally decided that i was serious and mature enough to step up and do it.

a few years later it was over and it wasn't pleasant. she is one of those ex's that i really am okay with not being with, i really don't "anything" her anymore. the parts i do miss is that i had a pretty good relationship with her mother and i miss that kid like i never thought i could.

she is now around ten or eleven and i wonder about her quite often.


but to the point, to the topic, there was this little kid who would always want to ride on my shoulders which was fine. i didn't mind most of the time, however as she got older she found it hilarious to beg me to pick her up and as soon as she was settled, this tiny person emitted an adult sized fart right on my neck and on the back of my head.

it got to be that i started to refuse and she would whine that her feet hurt and that she really wasn't going to do that again and like the fox and scorpion i'd relent and BRAAAAAP!

followed by laughter... lots and lots of laughter.

week 11: sweet

sugar and spice and all that... despite my inherent tendencies towards pessimism, depression and a general sense of malaise i am making attempts to have a more positive outlook on things. this is easier said than done, i know that it's easy to smile during the summer and all that, when things are going well, when you're in love, i know that i've been caught up in that feeling of euphoria, for lack of a better term.

however, when things are like they are now, where the only real positive things are dealing with painful shit that i've been avoiding for most of my life, not drinking myself retarded and a plan to finally tackle making an honest attempt at selling the whole art thing it's pretty easy to feel like not all that much is being accomplished. mostly i feel like i'm expending a huge amount of effort with no real tangible results to mark any sort of progress. but again, that's the negative attitude that i was talking about earlier.

so i don't have to be in love to remember love, i can remember the better parts of failed relationships rather than the messy, painful ends, and i can smile a little more often than i used to for so many years.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that i don't have to rely on what is or isn't going on in my life define me as a person, and i think that i used to do that more often than not.

so as a counterpoint to the piece did on whisper a few months back - i submit love.

this one i'm adding as a bonus, it will be the centerfold pin up in the first issue of fifty-two fridays, volume one that will be printed very soon, just one of the extra goodies you get for exchanging green pieces of paper for white ones, stapled together and covered in black ink. yes, i am aware that you could probably print this out on your own but i'm pretty sure that anyone who reads this on a semi-regular basis would have better ethics than that. (this is me, having faith in humanity once again... don't make me regret it.)

tension 3

there have been many stories i have told over the years that involve couches in some way or another. these are pieces of furniture designed to create intimacy, closeness, unity, reinforcing the social bonds between us human people. furniture, and how its used, intrigues me, i look at an old chair, or couch and wonder what that piece has seen over the years between showroom floor and abandoned on the street corner or some empty lot. 

i have experienced in my short time here on this planet a full range of human interaction from love to sex, anger to hate - indifference... i have fallen in love and had that same woman break my heart - both of these on the same sofa.

you'd think that given the amount of personal tragedy ive experienced on them that i'd learned by now to avoid the fucking things, but no.  

and this one i just can't help seeing something about to go wrong and not being able to do anything to stop it. all it needs is a small nudge.

and lastly the phenomenon that i have coined the term "tacobelly", which is what you get about ten minutes after eating at taco bell - and yet a month later, there i am, getting me some tacos.

sometimes i think that i'm too ridiculous to live.

tension two

been messing around with different pens this week, this was one of the things that came out of that experiment.

just really tired, tense, my head feels like a weight and my neck is stiff.

there is a story in this, im just too meh to bother.

week 10: tension

and in its July, we're twenty-three, we are young but old enough and it's perfect - drinking corona’s on the front porch on a summer night - having random stupid conversations, back when sexual tension was measured in in terms of her hitting me in the arm every two minutes.

this one came difficultly, i have some other thoughts on this, but they are vague and really not all that well thought through. i might update this later in the week.

it's kinda funny, its been eleven years and i can still remember the way she felt and smelled.

the face though has faded away years ago. theres this line in a song i heard once, "he put the bottle to his head and pulled the trigger.

i can relate.