Icarus's blog: "Hope- by any other name."

I might be in a worse mood than I thought.
First

we've got some seasonal antics in my city.

There was a fire in an elevator shaft

we're talking pillar of flames

in my office building
and a bomb threat in the same neighborhood.

I spent about an hour standing in a big clump of people wondering what in the fuck was going on, and went back to work in a place that smelled a bit like burning paper and large men with axes and helmets.

Second
somebody called me fucking Andrew
...
this is not my name
this has 2 things in common with my name
first hint
both names have two syllables.

What am I more pissed off about, stressed about, and less than willing to go to work about tomorrow?

The bomb threat/arson investigation where I spend 8 hours every five days.

Might be making me a more-than-usual testy cunt.
Or maybe people are being tardariffic. Could be a unique alchemy
a perfect storm situation.









*cracks neck like a stepped on plastic bottle*
*sighs*

I never hear her say "I love you" when she gets off the phone.
Everyone else does.
Mark of youth?
Mark of severity?
Mark of happiness?

But why did she call me Andrew...
























Did I mention she's beautiful?

Maybe I needed clarity, maybe I needed to feel numb
but the hooch helped.

I dunno... it's been a while
a good long while since something wasn't thought to death with me.
Just felt right y'know?

Not my usual fated bullshit I pull to get girls in the sack either.

So I might have to step back a bit on this one, I'd rather not.
But the last time I had a muse, it kinda ended after but one somewhat sexual encounter.
Intense
but all the more
too fucking cerebral.

She was the best girl I knew- on paper. Dunno what went wrong from there.
But it felt more like shopping for a car than making love.
At least I wasn't just killing time like I usually was.

It's not right of me to carry on now that I know she has a mate.
It's not right of me to linger in the pleasant places where the perfect or even real version of her exists.
She was good for my work I think.
She was good for ... me. Really.
I acknowledged having a spontaneous emotion or 12.
But...

there is the major but of the other man.

Does this mean this period of work is closed?





















































I never said I was giving her up.

It's been a while since I shot for sol.
If she gives me the chance I will.
Good bad, or cinders.

The question is what to do from here

(that means feedback from you smart folks).
And I'm not a fan of being a gentleman.
But I refuse to become what I hate.

Open mic kids, how best to win?

"My side of the bed"
That's not a phrase one utters with great frequency when you're not sleeping with someone.
And 9 times out of 10 who you're sleeping with is your lover.
Hell... 9 times out of 10 when you say "my side of the bed"
you're talking about your live in.
Exclusivity, priorities, marriage.
That kinda shit.

Very suddenly the sky is falling.
And I'm trapped in a coffin of cubicle dimensions and postit memos.
"Taken"
that's another word we don't hear in casual conversation.
These words are the plunger of my executioner's needle.
That just made it press all the faster.
Everything slowed down in that realization.
As poison reality sped through my veins and into my heart.
It could have lasted all day.
Everything got thick, like walking through mud, maybe losing a shoe or two.

I wanted to escape, go to my happy place
where the air wasn't lead, and my insides weren't falling into my toes,
but the only destinations on my list had her with me.

My next recollection is washing sick and grime out of my mouth.
Blasting a knuckle duster off, and speeding back home.
Maybe not all in that order.

My shirt unbuttoned, my pants around my thighs and that lingering electricity of a forced frustrated orgasm.

It only helped to sink me back from panic and into a miserable solid.
The drive back was another missing section.
So was lunch. So was a day's worth of caseloads and processing.

All I knew was someone was speaking.
And taking my candy.

Wait... that one was literal.

"Hey- she likes you."
said an older smoked out leathery hispanic hag.
A caramel hand caught in my tin, digging out two drops and crunching them.
They're meant to be savored.
But I guess everyone has rules on hard candy.
That's fine.
Everything's fine when she's here.

...
this is real isn't it?
She's here, again, and she's smiling, that smile I haven't seen in a week.
The one that makes me worship the buttons down her blouse and chew threw the one over her panties.
We're still undecided on what kind she wears.
For once, I could give a fuck less.

"Shut up Ana!"
"Did you hear us as we came in? We were speaking Spanish- do you speak Spanish?" said the cackling old hag.
"Un pequito" I say still more than a little entranced by the color of her skin.
"Did you hear us? I asked her if she liked you- I said 'te gusta?'" she points a long witchy finger at me, turns to pantamime that she's now someone else- smiles coyly and says "me gusta".

I'm pretty sure I had in fact heard just that.

But it could have been my hope crazed brain gasping for a reason to continue running.

Hell... this might not be happening at all.

"Shut up Ana!" and she buzzes and shoos at the old witch.
She giggles
"see she wants some quality time, she does like you!"

Lazers may have come out of her eyes when Ana samba'd off.
I think that might be part of the appeal.
White women waltze off.
Latinas samba, in this crazed but sensical oomf of liquid sex and confidence.

I've never seen a lurch or a stomp not a single step without a flow from her.

"hey-" she stops to laugh at the absurd situation she's in.
I smile too, its that one where I'm pained, but glad to see you.
"hey, what's up with that email you sent me?"

Oh dear...

What did my panicked wit produce this time?
What lifeline did I beg her for
Paris?
Morocco?
Her place?











I remember now.

"I asked you to smile."
It was barely over a whisper.

"Yeah, don't worry about it I'm bi-polar"
to this I scoffed.
"Everyone's bipolar" half the cases I run have someone claiming it as a disability, hell it was an inneroffice joke at this point.
Which meant it was something else.
And the face that followed begged me to pry, but I pretended not to see it.
"You've just been so gloomy lately, you should cheer up."
Flat. Like a rehearsed plea to the jury after six nights in a yellow cell.
Like a request for water, or to see a tree after years of desert.

I tried not to be so blunt about it,
I tried to ask her what her boyfriend would think about what Ana had said,
something cute and witty to keep this feeling from falling into both of us
just waiting for the vase to connect
and the pieces of me to scatter.

"I'll try"
But that moment had already come.
Where no sensible, adjusted person wouldn't notice.



















And she smiled the rest of the day.

Maybe I should call in tomorrow, listen to my goofy music and dab with my charcoals.

I need to see how much I miss my muse instead of reading it so often.

She's becoming the better part of me
she's perfect right here and now. And that's kinda safer than talking to her, and molding illusion back into reality.

Can't I just have her like this
a beautiful phantom of poetry and light daydreams?

...

I suppose not.

But she is beautiful here
if not a little trapped.

Like a prisoner looking in on a musicbox.

Perhaps I'm just lonely, but prefer this safe, quiet place.
Where no one rejects me, no one scolds me.
No one tells me to clean my house.

Cold
rainy
beautiful

A lot like this song, a lot like I'm sure she kisses.
Those are the best days.
Sleep in, stare out into the captive silence
down blankets and fragrant tea warming your hands and nose.

She's that safe place at the edge of the bed
where life stories are shared,
sometimes sweat and seed is spilled
sometimes you watch your lover put on her socks and run late the rest of the day.

Sometimes...

Could she stand being this safe every day?

Perhaps I should ask.

I was wondering
where I could stand in such a perfect world
one which would allow you and me.
Is it a place of light and pleasant mirage.
Is it some place solid
will I have to dance and maneuver
or can I just please have you?

Will there be room for my quills collection and many many large sized dogs?

Hammocks, dwindling hairlines, fading memories of a life before you.

We're going to need a bigger place.

Can we delete this nervous young man who's sure he has nothing to say?
Nothing interesting at least other than
parting from you is the hardest part of my day
and
when you smile, my heart remembers to beat

can I build you a world of words and romance
a palace of fine crystal and bright feathers
or should I request something of a bit more substance?

I'm afraid that if I did, you would turn in fear from me.
The rest have, and while I do think you're different
I think you all have that in common.
Everyone leaves.
Everyone quits.
One way or another.
You will be no different, but... perhaps you could be the high point I conclude at.

You could be my opus, my blue period, my line to follow in grey.
I could promise you a lifetime of delicacy, an eternity of admirers and pontificators
I could grant you immortality, in my own humble, clumsy way.

Just come to me
place your ear to my heart and beg me to love you.

I will promise you nothing less than this.

Don't you love it when otherwise decent artists completely phone it in?































Is it fair for me to live my dreams
under my father's advice
when I don't honestly feel that he has lived his.
What if you're quite sure that you've only had nightmares.

Ones about pestilent bite flies and pervailing themes of pessimism.
Having your teeth pulled one by chunky-blood-one
dirty forceps, cold metal chairs
How about the night of hooks and a million lacerations?
Or the raining jumpers cracking the cement.

No sir, I don't believe I'll be living out my dreams this day or the next.

My dreams are too fanciful anyway
custom suits
both giant mechanical and silk

Long vacations in a hammock with my beloved, and the occasional raygun fight or poetry jam with my son.

These days I'd settle for keeping all my hair and a decent supply of banana chips- both spiced and unspiced.

Love is just ammunition for a greater downfall.
Kids are just a sling of bleeding
alimony this
tetnus shots that
love me more this
can I move in that

But I wouldn't mind bein a suave foreigner who dies young, beautiful and amazing.

Some kinda naked skydiving orgy incident...

That wouldn't be all bad.

In the meantime there's shitty new music on the radio.

And twelve steps to happiness.

From what I can gather from my spidey sense
and my elementary understanding of romance languages

this isn't going over so well.
Seems there's a problem with the honky who came to dinner
which is weird because

"you okay?"
"Yeah- just..." I dart my eyes to her 3 brothers half-huddled like hyenas waiting for the carcass to cool
"-my stomach, y'know how it is babe" I smile my weak, pained smile and resist the urge to kiss her on the lower lip, but scritch her hips anyway.
I'm sure nobody's too crazy about any PDA's about now.

A very dense and thick hand claps on my shoulder

here it fucking comes...

"Hey man, you got a second we wanna show you something."

And there's dissapearing girlfriend trick #28.
When accosted by overprotective siblings, reasonable, persuasive and very cute girlfriends were just in your imagination, and won't be back until after a few very uncomfortable hours.

I've sung this song, I've danced this dance... but my stomach just filled with acid and cement.
Felt like I was sloshing in my own shoes.

These guys look like they belong in a Denzel Washington movie.
You know the one- with lots of -subtle- lighting tricks and swearing.

I wonder what kinda bathtub they got...

They stroll me into the garage like a steer about to get pinched. One on each side, the biggest duckwalking me from behind.
So close I can smell their "I haven't showered in 2 weeks, and I wore this shirt last monday" sophistication.
Cheap cigs and pot on their breath.

Just fucking terrific.

But hey, maybe I'll get off easy this time, maybe they'll just insist I light up with them, and have them tell me how it is from lawnchairs and shitty beer.

That hand's back on my shoulder, pushing me onto an overturned bucket.
No such hope for hospitality.

At least its not her dad

is he even here?

"So how long you known my sister?"
"Couple months- said you were her favorite..." or was it the one in prison?

Spider web tattoos on his hands, faded charcoaly ink

fuck

this IS the brother in prison

was it for something stupid or something violent?

"You treatin her right."
"She's got no complaints"
The younger ones are on both sides, I wonder if they know how fast I can uppercut danglybits from this angle- and their posture.
I wonder how fast I can get 2 down and get the door

gee
that's a great way to advance a relationship

hey sweety, I just demolished your brothers' sacks and headbutted the ugly one while strangling and slamming his head in a big bloody soup on your garage's floor

pass the potato salad.

I guess they don't know well enough that numbers never really meant all that much to me-
I remember once I got out of a fight by choking one kid with my legs and biting his head while his friends held me by my arms...

is it getting "out" of a fight if you make people bleed and flee? or just winning?

Whatever- these fucksticks don't even know I've got a plan and its only been 30 seconds of his blathering about "respect" and whatever he says he has planned for my genitals.

I'm hoping its something original this time, but I haven't heard the words acid or smelted bronze...

"you know what"

"what's that ese?"

... seriously? Ese? Am I IN a shitty movie right now?
And yeah, I couldn't help but chuckle right there.

His brothers shuffled.

"You don't know where I've been"
I looked him dead in the eyes, and I could see my reflection

that's the kinda shit a multibillion dollar actor can never get right

that solid crack of thick and skull from a long drop,
years of very
very unpleasant things leaving you something frightfully transparent.

"I've lost more in a night than you could ever take from me, I've rebuilt limbs,-"
I stepped up and kicked the bucket over
"burned histories, I've gone through personal, financial, and imagined hells before you even thought to idolize a shitty rap video and put that greasy beater on for the first time and started callin yourself Rico instead of Richie-
Step back and mind your own fucking business"
I made sure there was some english to that "st" and left a little moisture just above the bridge of his nose.
Punky fat fuck.

I shoulder through the other two
"we're done here."

I put my hand on the knob and step out into a glorius cool summer, nephews and cousins chasing fantastic figments, elders casting the occasional watchful eye over their antics while talking shop of grades and growth spurts.

I find her in a shadey corner, bump her away from a gaggle and put a long slow victorious wet one on those firm smooth lips.

"went well?"
"Your brother's love me."

Today I felt my life ending through my fingertips.
Familiar, like the smell of honeysuckles, or the feel of a thin fuzzy blanket on my cheek.

It was a depth of silent bang and crumble.
But to the casual observer a meer passing.
Weirdens my heart, darkens my gaze,
as the sun refused to rise
the songs refused to rhyme
children refused to play

Today she did not smile.

And in so doing, slammed my heart shut like a blocked ventricle
massive event.
Seized, clogged and hardened

I gasp for life
support
my two servings of kindness and flitting beauty before winter.

The promise of never again gripped me about the throat like Samael's unfeeling grin.

Today I reached
before I could catch that bedeviled arm of mine, pass it as another spazm

she did not turn.

My eyes no longer speak for me.
They've turned glassy, a permanent bluff of humanity.

Try not to look into them when you think I'll bleed my heart
you won't see a change.

I spoke, I joked, and marionetted a thousand hypotheticals in front of the mirrors
not a glimpse of me there.

Cold, distant,
the high gloss rampart

forbid access
camoflauged empty behind the lens.

I felt as much as my flat facsimile of bent light and illusion.
Fascination only in the lack of fascination.

The complete lack of surprise at what has happened to me.
How this soul was severed, ejected, and removed from my memory.

Like a bad gear, or a faulty component
stressed beyond its means and cast into the floating dark.

Still there is hope, a trace flavor when she smiles
I am alive for one glorius life time

Stirring rust and seized hinges as I echo a coy yearning
one fearful of losing her in the place that I have for her now.

Rendevous', hidden trysts, wet locks of that thing they called passion.
I fear gambling with these things, for what becomes of me once they are lost?

There's an outside chance that I'm dry.

Like the sound of chalk on teeth.

Anything less would be criminal.

So I'll save you a couple bucks
give you the abridged
compiled codex.

It's not a sense.
Knowing isn't enough.
Twice verified, and date stamped.
Feeling can be faked.
Prickly, tickly and sizzly.

this bubble in my head won't pop

Not til I've