The Thirty-Eighth Post

What should a mother do when her infant dies? Should she have another? While the script The Maestro and I are writing sits on the back burner, I continue to work on other things, starting new projects, attempting new genres. Because I won’t get rich writing by not writing.

Even now, new memories still appear, come together. Now reframed, re-contextualized. Seeming even more twisted than when they happened; Lynchian, Cronenbergian, velvet nightmares— My mother, flaunting her body around the house when it was just me, in my early teens, and her. Wearing braless tanks and pantiless shorts. Sitting, legs spread in the eat, and I’m seeing her bush peak out from underneath. Feeling embarrassed when a friend saw the same thing. Seeing her put a drink down in front of my older cousin and watching him watch her tank come down and expose her hanging tits. On vacation in Hawaii, mortified as she made no effort to be discreet as she asked our private tour guide what turned him on. I was all of 12 or 13 when these things happened. Ah, so that’s why she makes my skin crawl so much today – she always, always has. That’s why she doesn’t respect any of my boundaries – she’s no clue about them.

And then a crushing moment, experienced in the living room of our home, when my father came back from overseas, wanted to be alone while I wanted to hang around with him, and he said to me, “You know, when you’re around a lot, it doesn’t please me; your presence becomes cheap. If you want me to enjoy your company, show yourself less.”

And there’s me, hanging on the words, waiting for the punchline as usual, the wink, the twinkle in the eye to suggest playful sarcasm, irony, a joke, anything, and finding just his stone-faced displeasure, disengagement, and realizing he meant it I went to my room and looked in the mirror and thought I must be heinous, ugly, a terrible disappointment for my father to feel that way about me because all my friends’ fathers seemed to enjoy hanging out with their sons.

“He said it, he actually used the word ‘cheap’?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“C-h-e-a-p.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s so sickening.”

Silence from me.

“What did you do after that? Was that when you started to hurt yourself?”

“Not till about a year after.”

“How did you feel about yourself?”

“Ugly. Unloved, unlovable. Unliked.”

“All children do that. They find a way, even if it’s a terrible way, to validate what their parents say, so they believe it. All children.”

More silence.

“Do you find yourself feeling some of these things today in your life?”

“Of course. I know they’re lies, and I know they’re not true, but there they are, I feel them all the same.”

“Yeah. Because the truth is there’s a lot to like.”

Silence.

“I know that’s probably hard to hear at this moment.”

“Yeah. It is.”

My hand, gripping the phone tight. The tears falling.

I listen to her write down notes.

*

Stella, one of my best friends, also a writer, digs the idea I’ve just run by her.

“It’s commercial whoring,” I tell her. “Very nearly hack work. We’re blatantly taking a classic template for a movie like that and filling in the blanks. But I think if you fill them up with good conflicts, nobody–and by ‘nobody’ I mean a producer or creative executive–is going to give a shit. They’ll like that it came out of a mold. They all want the same thing ‘only different’. They won’t even fucking buy it otherwise!”

“Hey it sounds good to me. I’d like to write something that’ll sell, too.”

“And this thing can pay for our other things. The other pet projects that take a long time to finish. We should probably always be writing one thing that can pay for all the other things.”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Right on.”

And so we have a logline. Here’s the logline for “Pretty Woman”: A rich businessman falls in love with the prostitute he hires for a week.

You have no idea how hard it is to make a logline work like that. It’s so simple, but sometimes it’s harder than writing the scenes themselves.

The Thirty-Seventh Post

Everyone’s out of town. Birnbaum, in Eastern Europe for 12 weeks. Maestro, in China for 8. I got tired of kicking the rewrite around without a real sense of direction, and getting the sense that I was the only one interested in continuing to write, I decided to start another screenplay, with a really dear friend who’ll be my writing partner. It’s something I’m getting more comfortable doing – putting my brain together with someone else’s and see what bastard children we create that I ordinarily wouldn’t on my own. These attempts are all commercial in nature and have nothing to do with the kind of writing I’ve aspired to as a W/writer, but really so they can pay for it.

I’ve a lot to say about my relationship with my mother, and it’s nothing I probably haven’t said already on this blog, so instead of a rant, I’ll sum it all up by saying she makes it easier and easier to disconnect myself from her. I’m tired of parenting her, being her surrogate husband, and I really fucking hate it when she acts like she’s my child. My narcissistic, disingenuously stupid, self-made victim child. Who calls all of this “love and concern”. My father and mother have made me hate hearing the words “I love you”. That’s when I freak. That’s when I cringe. That’s when I feel dirty, in real need of a thorough cleaning. That’s when I want to run. Though I try to put up with, and receive it, because it might be good for me. Or something like that. I don’t know, I’ve got a headache.

The bills are piling up and it’s getting hard to pay them all. Another reason for my commercial aspirations. Oof. I used to put up with being broke a lot better in my 20s. When you’re 34, the feeling of loserishness can creep in. I shake it off by going to the gym. Though my trainer’s gone AWOL. Exhausting myself. Steam emanating.

But, all is not amiss. Silas, the kid I tutored, won the fucking laptop in the writing contest sponsored by the shelter. I handed it to him in the library near the apartment his mom just moved them into and he was the envy of every kid there. And it’s been a few months since I’ve seen him but his mother rang last week to tell me that in the time since, he’d written a novel that was now being published in hardcover, nationwide. I was agog, filled with pride, terribly moved for them. This’ll help pay for school, college, clothes. And by the time he’s an adult he’ll have had a lifetime of writing and publishing experience. It’s insane. Insanely good. I wish I didn’t have a headache – this shouldn’t sound so subdued.

If I don’t make it and this kid does, honestly, it’d be alright.

The Thirty-Sixth Post

I renewed the contract yesterday. The one says I promise I’ll call my therapist all times of the day if I ever feel compelled to hurt myself. Or kill myself.

‘Cos if it was just the compulsion to hurt myself that was enough to spur a call, I’d call you almost every bleeding night, wouldn’t I?

No, really, it’s under control. Seen in glimpses, thanks mostly to a dark sense of humour. Funny to no one but myself, really.

By the way, I think autoerotic asphyxiators should carry a card on their person or amidst their personal belongings that say–

Dear Sir/Madame,

I am an autoerotic asphyxiator. If you are reading this card, there is a good chance you have or will soon discover my body. What appears to be a suicide by hanging was merely an attempt at masturbation gone wrong. I have not killed myself intentionally. There was no foul play. I apologize for the inconvenience and hope this explanation will satisfy the authorities, but trust that the matter will be reported with discretion for the sake of my family and loved ones.

Best regards,

The Deceased

I imagine it would help tremendously; the poor chambermaid whose job isn’t to discover naked swinging bodies in their rooms; the puzzled family members who’ll never know if it was a suicide or accident; investigators, and so forth. I guess you think about these things when you’ve been suicidal. The consideration you show to the people you leave behind, or the person who’ll discover you.

When I heard David Carradine was found naked and hung in a hotel closet in Thailand I immediately thought he’d died from autoerotic asphyxiation. A 72 year old movie star grandparent wouldn’t commit suicide 2 days into a film shoot with no note left behind, it didn’t seem plausible. Later on I heard he had a shoe string tied to his penis, with the other end around his neck. It’s no less tragic. Maybe more. I really liked watching him in movies.

If autoerotic asphyxiation was my bag and I travelled, I’d print that card in the native language of the country of my visit. I’m just not sure what Google’s translator calls an autoerotic asphyxiator in Tamil/Norwegian/Icelandic/Vietnamese/Pharsee. Or what Carradine’s card would’ve said in Thai.

Sex. And Death. Eros and thanatos. Dying to cum. Dying while you cum. Dying after you cum. Dying before you cum. I guess if you wanted to you could say it’s how we all leave this life.

It’s morning now. Almost dawn. And I can’t wait to sleep. It’s how I’d love to do it, really, all the time; live in the night. But well-lit, magical nights. The nights I want to live forever in are like Christmas nights. Cold, brittle, but full of carolers, hot chocolate flasks, insomniac writers in insomniac cafes and other denizens of the dark, all of us in it together. The night breed. We sleep while you’re awake. We’re awake while you’re asleep. We like it like that.

*

Debauchette has been an inspiration to me and this blog in more than a few ways. She has, aside from being a writer I admire, worked very hard for a long time on a project that she and Kasia have finally released in the form of Filthy Gorgeous Things. It’s also where you can find some of both (aside from some other great writers’) of their newest writing. The site is drop dead beautiful. And reminds me of velvet, dark chocolate, and cognac. You must check it out when you can, because I think you’ll really like it.

And, sadly, if not tragically, Miss Inconspicuous has stopped posting, turning her blog private, and leaving behind a great void. But we can always hope for a return.

The Thirty-Fifth Post

San Francisco is a really fucking special place. If you’ve been, you’ll know what I mean. And if you haven’t, flights are cheap these days.

Driving up the 101, past Candlestick Park, coming up on the fog as it rolled in towards me, so did the memories. Rites of passage. My coming of age. Innocence. Innocence lost. A young man learning things about girls he was never taught in Catholic school.

You could say it was like seeing a lover from long ago. Walking down her streets from my hotel in Pacific Heights, down Fillmore, having a Mekong Mocha (not for the faint of heart) from the Bittersweet Cafe, past the French bistros, and then later along Post, towards Union Square. I was two streets West of the Marriott, waiting to cross at a light, when I heard a voice go, “Ay!”

I turned. He was an old coyote, in a beanie hat, holding a paper cup. I figured he wanted some change.

“Ay, for real. For real, dawg,” he said, motioning me over. I shrugged and approached him. He looked at me through drugstore glasses.

“Yo man I got a question for you,” he said. “You look like you got some answers.”

“I’ll try,” I said. “What is it?”

“Yo what do you do, man, when the world is comin’ down on you hard, and everything feel like shit, and your old woman treat you like a fool, man, what do you do?” he asked, through gold teeth with pain on his face. His cup was empty but he wasn’t asking for money.

“I smoke weed, dawg,” I replied. He looked up at me, confused. I figured I’d done enough damage, and turned around to cross the street.

“Ay! Ay!” he yelled. I turned around from where I’d gotten. Nodded my head, what?

“What does it do for you, the weed?” he asked.

“It makes me feel better,” I replied. I turned and started walking.

“Ay!” he yelled again. I turned my head. He was pointing at me, grinning, then laughing, and started to slap his thigh.

“What?”

“Dude you made my day. Thanks, man.”

I smile. I walk away.

The first thing I do, is walk into Niketown and pick out a pair of black Shox on sale. The sole on my right canvas slip-on split on a downhill walk, and I wanted better shit for my feet. I grabbed a pair of socks from the rack and tore them open. “Do you mind? I’m going to wear these out,” I say to the sales assistant. I put the old shoes in the new box and give them to the person working the checkout. To be recycled into childrens’ playgrounds, she says.

Then, I walk into a H&M and pick up a light-coloured blazer. I’d forgotten how cold Summers in San Francisco get, and on this day it was 55 degrees and the clothes I packed were mostly linen affairs and the warmest shirt I had was a henley. Minutes later, I emerged adequately clothed, shoed, and started to walk again.

The rest of the day was a montage. A man on the sidewalk showing a rat and a cat and a dog, hanging out together quite amicably. I give him three dollars and he lets me video them on my phone. A pretty girl from Hong Kong strikes up a conversation with me as we cross the street. We smile and wish each other a nice day as we then cross different streets. I watch her go and imagine the time I would’ve just put my hand on her arm, just below the elbow, maybe just above, and stopped her from crossing her street to ask her what she was doing later, maybe tonight. I toy with the idea, and finally pass. And, anyway, the moment had come and gone. I eat at a Hunan restaurant I ate at the night before. The lady who owns the place recognizes me and treats me extremely well. We make small talk. Later that night, in Union Square, outside a Forever 21, a small, older gentleman who’d seen better days approaches me and asks if I’d like to buy a copy of The Street Sheet, a small newsletter published for transients to sell. They’re $1 a copy. I give him $5. He thanks me and then I ask him if he knows where I can buy some dink. He nods quickly and says, “Follow me”.

We walk around the block as he looks for his man. We go to a Carl’s Jr where my new friend, Rick, Rick the Poetry Man says his connection is almost always at. Rick looks at me for a second and asks in a small voice, kind of like he wished he’d known to ask right away, if I was the po-lice. I laughed, and asked him if I smelled like the po-lice. You know, like bacon. He laughs. “You said bacon, man,” he says. He tells me he’s been writing poetry on the streets of San Francisco for 20 years.

“Do you like Bukowski?” I ask him.

“I only take my inspiration from the man above,” he replied.

We walked around a little more till he gives up, complaining the Bart police have fucked things up tonight. Asks if I can give him another five for trying. So I give him the five and as we part ways he tells me if I come by again and want to buy weed, anyone on the street will sell it to me if I just say Rick the Poetry Man said it was cool.

Later, standing under the awning of a pizza-by-the-slice place on the sidewalk, two girls dressed for a bachelorette party walking by point to me and say, “You’re sexy!” and then to each other, “okay that’s three, let’s go,” and take off in search of number four. Minutes later, I flag a cab back to my hotel, and feeling connected to everything and everyone, started thinking I really wanted to live here again.

Our agent hated our script. He didn’t use the word hate, but diplomatically told us he had “some major problems”, and The Maestro and I sat and listened with our jaws clenched and stomachs turning as he explained that in his opinion we’d gotten some fundamentally poor development from our manager, Angela Birnbaum, and our hearts sank as we listened to him essentially tell us that everything we should have done for the script were the things we’d wanted to do, till Birnbaum convinced us nobody would buy the script unless we made some commercial decisions. He blames Birnbaum. I blame myself. Us. We wanted to be amenable. We wanted to do whatever it took to get the script in shape for a spec sale and in so doing embarked on a year’s work of rewrites (mentioned often enough on this blog) that will now go sailing out the window. We deserve it for behaving like amateurs.

The Thirty-Fourth Post

It’s been pretty bad. There was a window of around three weeks things felt pretty good, like they were slowly coming together. Then, two weeks ago, a botched attempt at sex, my cock dead, my libido and sexuality shriveling on the spot, left me feeling shattered, and strangely wanting to die. I’m shattered right now writing this. Is my identity so tied to my sexuality that when the latter broke, so did the former? Is that how it is for all of us, or just some people?

A day or two after it happened, I spoke to a friend who said some very wise and kind things that went a long way towards making me feel better. And for a couple of days it seemed like I was going to just take it a little easier. And then sometime in the middle of the week I woke up  and felt like castrating myself. Not in the form of a fantasy, in the form of thoughts I have to push out of my head. Everyday now. Somewhere in my brain, are images of me chopping my own cock off with a cleaver, slicing it off with a sharp knife (will I piss myself while it happens?), tearing it off in rage. And I am exhausted, broken by them, and they leave me sometimes almost sobbing. Nauseated. Shaking. Weakened. In need of comfort, and afraid to find it. Afraid of people, everyone, myself. Afraid of the harm I might do me.

First came the hair tearing. Then came the visit to my stylist. A costly hair cut would keep the devil away, I reasoned. And it did. For about three days. After which came the incident in the bathroom with a pair of scissors. And another one. And another one. And now my hair is mutilated. I wear it in shame. And each time I look in the mirror I want to just buzz it all off, in spite and anger, but that would be no different than giving myself a bad haircut once again.

But I would look like I had cancer. I could join a support group. “I am Grimaldi, and I have a cancer,” I would say.

“What kind of cancer is it?” they would ask.

And I would look down in shame, and say, “My friends, it is a cancer of the soul.”

The nightmares have come back. Even on a double dose of Seroquel. Last night’s:

I’m in Portland, I’m there to meet a friend I’m attracted to and want to be lovers with. I find myself checking into a large, dirty, completely vacant motel. I have no cell phone reception in my room and even though the place is empty, the air is filled with the din of activity–washers and dryers going apeshit, toilets flushing, and I’m convinced the place is haunted. I open my bathroom and see my shower gushing filthy water and close the door immediately. I find a signal on my phone and am about to ring my friend so she’ll come and pick me up and it’s then when I see him: through the broken glass of my window. I don’t know who he is but he looks right back at me. He looks vaguely like me, but better looking, stronger, dangerous, and I don’t know if he’s my shadow, or the shadow of this place. I run out of my room, down the corridor, and out of the motel property, onto the road outside and see that I’m on a hill. I call my friend. She says she knows the place and will be there soon. I shut my phone off and look behind me at the motel and feel safe for the moment. Then realize my bags, all my shit is back in my room and wonder if I should go back for all of it, which would mean re-experiencing the place, possibly meeting my nemesis, or if I should just fuck it and leave when my friend gets there.

And then I woke up.

The Thirty-Third Post

It’s been a time of cleansing, of detoxification.  A season of recovery and reassessment. I’ve spent the last few months out of sight, mostly in my apartment, and leaving mostly only for my therapy and psychiatric appointments, and the odd lunch with a friend here and there I managed to drag myself out for.

The wounds still sometimes feel fresh. But the healing, significant, as I slowly find ways to relate healthily to my past and the things that happened. The therapy and the hard work is bearing fruit. And little by little I begin to understand the forces inside myself, see things with more clarity. My inner compass, broken and spinning wildly even before all of this, is getting its bearings. I’m beginning, for possibly the first time in my life, to appreciate myself.

And in learning to appreciate myself, I’ve found myself acting decisively when it came to people and entanglements. Things had started up between Cheryl and myself again, for instance, until her ex moved into town, and a whole love triangle threatened to ensue. Feeling she had her own drama to see through and not wishing to purchase any part in it, I wished her all the best and told her to have a good life, either with the ex, her husband, or whatever she decided was ideal for her.

Several days ago, Lana wrote. We’d not seen each other since my sudden childhood recollections occured but stayed in touch over the phone and through texts. A day came when I left her a friendly voicemail that wasn’t returned, and neither was a text message. That night I found a note from her in my inbox. It’d been too long, she said. She liked me more than I liked her so what was the point? We were just casual friends now, and she wished me well. I was surprised, but didn’t reply immediately. I wrote her back a couple of days later instead, saying I didn’t blame her for her reaction but as an explanation I felt she deserved, let her know it wasn’t personal and that I’d merely reconnected with The Maestro a few nights ago after all these months of hiatus, thanked her for the good times and wished her well also.

A day later, she wrote back. From the typos, she was probably drunk. “Don’t push away the people who care about you,” she said in the first note. I got three more in quick succession, about getting together if/when I ever felt like it, how she wasn’t good at expressing her feelings. Then I got a last one, saying, “Don’t write me off, I really care about you.” I took a look at the note, went back up to the top of the message thread, noted the bipolarity between her first and last notes, and wrote back with a simple, “I didn’t write you off. You wrote me off, remember? Take care.”

I don’t find myself wanting to spend much time on things or people that don’t have their heads at least mostly together. I’ve spent too much time with mine in pieces, and too much time piecing mine back.  I’m averse to anything approximating drama. Nothing, nobody feels worth marginalizing myself or this process for. And as I emerge from my foxhole my focus is simple: my writing career. The Maestro and I are regrouping and finishing our script, which I’ve spent most of tonight streamlining and trimming. And I’ve begun developing an indie comic with a friend who illustrates. One’s for the money. One’s for me. Right now it’s as pat as that.

I feel connected to the abundance in the universe. I feel connected to myself. I feel little fear. About love. About companionship. About dangerous desires. This time of hiatus has been a time of abstinence as well. One I’d like to break in time, when I’m ready. The Summer feels right. Now I’m still sort of protective over myself, my space, my skin. And I can’t do it just yet. So I’ll let it run its course.

Your comments meant the world to me. The diversity of your kindness and support blows me away. Thank you. For reading, and reaching out. It’s past 5am and I’m finally going to bed now. But stayed up late for good reasons.

The Thirty-Second Post

Plainly put, I look like shit warmed over. It parses for me on account it’s a fair description of how I feel, if you’re into vastly understating things.

The memory from before did not stand alone. The combination of the mathatical improbability of that incident being isolated plus the catalytic combustion of its integration as a whole memory sparked a chain reaction on my therapist’s couch and soon the prodding became the opening of the floodgates, and I fell apart in front of her. I could feel my father’s hands on me, feel myself shrinking, see his leer and nothing but, and the creeping but undeniable sensation of being penetrated. With something. A finger.

“What if these aren’t real memories? What if they’re constructs, part of the trauma, like a memory dump full of bad code?” I ask. Almost hopefully.

“Well. You have a really strong, clear memory of many other things,” she says, her eyes soft, but certain.

And I know she’s right. And I know it happened. So I turn my head and cry softly for a few moments. And catch her almost doing the same. I wonder if this is hard for her. And part of me wants to comfort her.

“I’m really sorry,” I manage.

“It’s okay. It’s part of the process.”

I’m not crying anymore. I’m aware of my body, relaxed, in the sofa.

“What’s just happened?” she asks.

“My pain just got compartmentalized.”

She thinks. Then,

“For now, feel free to keep using that.”

I came back home right after the session. Ragged by 10AM. And slept. Slept through the recurring nightmares, the sensations of intrusion. I woke up in the early evening–morning in my mother’s time zone, and dialed her in my bed. She answers. Knows from my voice something’s wrong.

I tell her. Share the first memory. Hints of the others. And end it all with a shaky but simple: “I think dad might have molested me when I was really young.”

And whatever her response was going to be, I wouldve never imagined it to be: “Yes, I saw that happen. But he was really just playing.”

And adds, as I start to sob, as the phone almost slips from my hands: “It’s okay to let these things out.”

I hung up in horror. And slept.

Which is how I’ve kinda been spending my days. In bed. Sleeping it off. Going to therapy and back. I can hardly eat more than a meal a day. I haven’t gone to the gym. I’m broken. Shattered.

The nightmares. Psychosexual. I’m sexually vulnerable, then I’m stabbed.

I’m so tired.

The Thirty-First Post

I’ve been here a few times now, to this cafe, early in the mornings before my therapy. I’m here now, on wireless, and I’m already starting to recognize some of the regulars: waif actress, or model, or aspirant, business woman with the David Lee Roth hair and the expensive power suit, probably a ball-busting attorney. Old character actor I can’t place, and the Asian girl with her (much) older suitor. There aren’t that many people here this time of the morning in this side of town.

The smell of good, good coffee. Bitter. Aromatic.

I’m big on smells. People smells, thing smells, cunt smells, colognes. One whiff and I’m transported, that sort of thing. And some scents I love that I wear, I inherited from my father. One of them particularly poignant, Aramis 900. His favorite, and one of my top five.

900 isn’t too easy to get. You have to look, though if you look hard enough you often find it. It comes in a large bottle, so it goes a long way. I’ve gone through, in my entire life, perhaps 3 bottles of 900, and by the time each bottle was finished, the next bottle got harder to find. Someday I’ll buy a lot of ten or twenty to last me my whole life.

It’s not an easy scent to wear. And probably not for most people. 900 is pungent, sharp, incredibly masculine. Herbs, decay, whiskey, cigarettes, expensive whores and hotels. It was how he smelled when he came back from long trips. Pulling off the cap, inhaling without even spraying, I’m there, 11 years old, running into his arms as he walked through the patio doors, setting down his briefcase as the chauffeur carried his suitcases behind him.

“Dad!” I yell and fly into his arms, bear hugging him and trying to lift him.

“Son,” he says, hugging me back.

I look up, he looks down. We’re both smiling.

“Get away, you’re ugly up close,” he says. Still smiling.

Something inside me breaks, and stops. I keep looking up. Waiting for the punch line.

But it doesn’t come. And his smile fades. So mine does, too. I withdraw. Get him a clean ashtray, his cigarettes and lighter, and pour him a drink.

*

"I’m struck by the pain of that,” she says, after she closes her eyes for a long beat.

*

Fragments of a memory come crashing in. Eight years old, lining up for tickets, somewhere, a football game, a movie, a circus, I don’t know. But my father and I are standing in line when he hands me the cash and tells me to get the tickets while he has a smoke.

Moments later, a hand on my ass, trying to get up my shorts. I whip around immediately and see an old man, pretending to look away. I don’t understand, this is new to me, and I’m confused. I turn around and then the hand comes once more. I turn around, and it’s only the old man, who doesn’t look like he’s done anything to me at all. It begins to upset me and when I turn around and feel the hand a third time, I look around for my father, desperate for his help. And I see him.

Standing there. In the smoking area. Cigarette burning as he watches, smiling, nodding. Seeing. Seen it all.

I don’t know if I was touched again but I got the tickets. My father came to me. Patted me on the back of the head. Like a good boy. A good, good boy.

*

“Did you suppress this completely or did you acknowledge a portion of the incident?” she asks.

“I think I was vaguely aware of the memory that an old man was trying to touch me in a queue. I’d suppressed the second half of the incident, my father’s reaction. I think it was the more heinous of the two.”

She nods. I’ve been sitting on her couch, one leg crossed over the other, looking out her window at nothing. Sunlight, a building across the street, cars parked by the sidewalk, people, and these simple things seem as foreign to me as organisms under a microscope. I’m tight, locked up, jaws, hands, legs, brain. I mention the nightmares every night, even during naps, that started as soon as the flashback occurred about a week ago. The headaches. The elevated anxiety. The sadness. The self-injury. Every word that comes out of me seems almost slurred, pulled out with tugs.

“I think you’re in post-traumatic stress,” she says, very, very kindly.

I nod.

“Do you want to wait till next week?” she asked. It was yesterday.

“No,” I say quietly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

*

I don’t think there’s been anything that’s made me more aware and appreciative of our body chemistry, than scents. Especially the delicate or complex ones.

When I wear the 900, it takes a second for the memory to come, and pass, and then on my skin it becomes mine. On my father it was a powerful, harsh scent. On me, more delicate, subtle. But the fundamentals still persist, and I love it for being so acrid and selective with its wearer. Bitter. Aromatic.

One minute to 8 AM. Soon the parking meters will want quarters. But I’m getting out of here, anyway.

The Thirtieth Post

When I think of you, I can’t help but think of them. A wish. A fantasy out of nowhere. Our unborn children, holding hands, in the night of the abandoned playgrounds, theme parks, places forgotten a long time ago and left to the wind, weeds, and rust. Then, irrationally, I’m angry with you for not feeling the same way. Then I’m angry at myself for being irrationally angry. It goes on like this.

*

“Good morning, SUNSHINE!” It is a text from Lana, who sends me one every morning. It’s become a joke between us, my hatred of the mornings to a person who gets out of bed at 6 every day. Usually by the time I’m up to get it, it’s been hours, since.

“Ugh.” My usual response. Usually around noon.

“Do you like traveling?”

Alarms. Alarms. Alarms.

“No. You?”

Long pause.

“Yes. Why do you hate traveling?”

“I’m claustrophobic.”

“Why are you claustrophobic?”

“Because my mother had a late term twin abortion and I spent nine months in the same womb my brothers were murdered in, with their pain screaming in my brain.”

“WTF?????”

“Oh. Sorry. Forgot I was supposed to be funny all the time. Um, I’m claustrophobic because I had a babysitter with huge tits who liked to suffocate me with them! Waka waka.”

“Thank god! You scared me!!”

“My material is dark.”

“Do you like horse riding?”

“Hate it.”

“Fine!”

“FINE.”

“Make out with me when you get better, ok?”

“Sure.”

*

I’m going to the gym early in the morning, everyday for a burst of cardio in addition to my evening training sessions, and a Pilates reformer class asap. It won’t be long before I’ll be able to blow myself, people.

Also, soon to come, conversations with my brand new, $200/hr Beverly Hills psychotherapist.

The Twenty-Ninth Post

Soon, then, the compartments will swallow you like they do, they always do. First you will be in a large compartment so vast I won’t even realize it’s there. Then, that compartment will shrink. And narrow. And shorten. Before long, you will be in a small room, in a mansion full of many rooms, where it won’t hurt, though you’ll be a tooth in the gears of my divine discontent machine. Then I’ll write horrible love stories that end in abandonment, and betrayal, and death, and you’ll watch them on the screen, or read them somewhere, and wonder if they were about you.

You really hurt the fuck out of me.