Heart like a grenade. Fragments everywhere. Pieces in Kentucky and North Carolina and a couple of schools I'd really not want to ever set foot in again. More pieces embedded in other people - family and friends here, in other cities and states, in Germany and Iraq and Australia and Britain and God knows where else. Others thrum and burn at a voice or a song or a memory. Some have been flung so far out into space as to be almost nonexistent.
Such a short fuze. Takes no pull at all to set it off. One word or verse or thought in the right place and it's fire in the hole. Anger to joy to lust to despair to euphoria to numb.
Whole hearted. Sounds great. Lots of pieces for God to collect. Only He can find them. What's my part of the deal?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
reload
New Year's Day.
Not a bad one. This year the wife and I were up too damn late New Year's Eve watching Twilight Zone reruns and playing Trivial Pursuit with Kevlar and K-bar at their apartment with their cat Spyder going berserk around us. Finished the bottle of Tullamore Dew that Cap'n Caveman was kind enough to buy us at Knox last June. Got up too early and did not much, at least not much I'm going to detail here. So there was plenty of time to think.
I don't want to think anymore.
Last year at this time wasn't so hot. We went to a NYE party at church, after the previous night of watching Hogfather at J & J's while thoroughly 'faced on Pusser's. I put my arm around my niece Koly when someone old enough to know better made her cry with a thoughtless remark about her musical tastes (which are, by the way, superb). We did iPod karaoke over the PA system and I watched much more talented vocalists than me prove themselves to be just that. Then we got all introspective and asked ourselves what we made of 2007 and what we should do about 2008. Not good questions for me. I lost my grip and made a general arse of myself. Woke up the next day feeling horrible, went to the range with Craig and managed not to put my Mosin-Nagant M44 under my chin, though I badly wanted to.
New Year's is the same anvil I've been beaten on every year. And I am not looking any better. Everyone tells me I have changed dramatically and still am. I want to see that. I want to know what they know, but I don't. When I lost it at the karaoke party someone very dear to me held my hand and told me that it wasn't my fault. In general, in a broad-brush, all-encompassing sense, it wasn't my fault. Life wasn't my fault. I wasn't my fault. She cut through the fog and effortlessly saw something I didn't, and I wished I could see it with her, but I couldn't, and I still wish I could, but I still can't. I'm trying. I'm failing.
I love these people. I want to be on the same page with them. But the love that feels like it could crush my ribcage like a grape doesn't come out the way it should. Love gives and doesn't run out. When I move toward them it feels not like giving, but taking more and more. I want to give, act, live, move in that love but it falters. The defects and weakness rise to the surface and there is nothing to give that's worth receiving. They tell me I do okay by them but it's not okay on this end. The love curdles into an ache that never goes away. It turns into glass walls and I can see my friends on the other side and we can pass little things back and forth underneath but I can't break the glass.
Every new year is a reload. Fresh start. But I'm not fresh. I'm tired. I want to hide from desire, from yearning, from heart. There's no place to go, so obviously I won't. Just on the off chance that it means a goddamn thing, I'm not a volunteer. I was, and I'd like to be again. Endurance is a good thing, but it can't be the only thing.
God, don't leave me here. Did you make this for nothing? Your prerogative, but I was led to believe that You didn't. Desire is a lie and a baited trap and a mirage to chase into oblivion unless You fill it. Please.
Not a bad one. This year the wife and I were up too damn late New Year's Eve watching Twilight Zone reruns and playing Trivial Pursuit with Kevlar and K-bar at their apartment with their cat Spyder going berserk around us. Finished the bottle of Tullamore Dew that Cap'n Caveman was kind enough to buy us at Knox last June. Got up too early and did not much, at least not much I'm going to detail here. So there was plenty of time to think.
I don't want to think anymore.
Last year at this time wasn't so hot. We went to a NYE party at church, after the previous night of watching Hogfather at J & J's while thoroughly 'faced on Pusser's. I put my arm around my niece Koly when someone old enough to know better made her cry with a thoughtless remark about her musical tastes (which are, by the way, superb). We did iPod karaoke over the PA system and I watched much more talented vocalists than me prove themselves to be just that. Then we got all introspective and asked ourselves what we made of 2007 and what we should do about 2008. Not good questions for me. I lost my grip and made a general arse of myself. Woke up the next day feeling horrible, went to the range with Craig and managed not to put my Mosin-Nagant M44 under my chin, though I badly wanted to.
New Year's is the same anvil I've been beaten on every year. And I am not looking any better. Everyone tells me I have changed dramatically and still am. I want to see that. I want to know what they know, but I don't. When I lost it at the karaoke party someone very dear to me held my hand and told me that it wasn't my fault. In general, in a broad-brush, all-encompassing sense, it wasn't my fault. Life wasn't my fault. I wasn't my fault. She cut through the fog and effortlessly saw something I didn't, and I wished I could see it with her, but I couldn't, and I still wish I could, but I still can't. I'm trying. I'm failing.
I love these people. I want to be on the same page with them. But the love that feels like it could crush my ribcage like a grape doesn't come out the way it should. Love gives and doesn't run out. When I move toward them it feels not like giving, but taking more and more. I want to give, act, live, move in that love but it falters. The defects and weakness rise to the surface and there is nothing to give that's worth receiving. They tell me I do okay by them but it's not okay on this end. The love curdles into an ache that never goes away. It turns into glass walls and I can see my friends on the other side and we can pass little things back and forth underneath but I can't break the glass.
Every new year is a reload. Fresh start. But I'm not fresh. I'm tired. I want to hide from desire, from yearning, from heart. There's no place to go, so obviously I won't. Just on the off chance that it means a goddamn thing, I'm not a volunteer. I was, and I'd like to be again. Endurance is a good thing, but it can't be the only thing.
God, don't leave me here. Did you make this for nothing? Your prerogative, but I was led to believe that You didn't. Desire is a lie and a baited trap and a mirage to chase into oblivion unless You fill it. Please.
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