Existence and Fiction

The question “Who am I?” increases exponentially with the amount of time I spend alone. The longer I am alone the more I try to understand what and why I exist. It’s quasi-philosophical, and yet, because the world isn’t flat and apples fall from trees, I expect provable, definitive answers to my musings.

I constantly define myself in relation to other people or my surroundings—seeking an external justification for my actions and ‘being.’ I wrote this poem a month or so back whilst in the bowls of lust and all else frilly and breathtaking.

MUSIC FOR THE TONE DEAF

You’re a human taxi, a machine fueled by fake Life Savers and vodka.

I’m a traveler, a spontaneous minx, slamming red Solo cups of lager and desire.

You’re the funny one, shaking your shoulders. I’ll brush them off in the rearview.

I’m aging faster than most, afraid and stoned, waltzing towards perdition.

You’re a nervous eater and a newcomer to my comforter (but you look good inside it.)

I’m a human cold compress, and you’re a hot water bottle. Soft skin, pastry warm.

You said you masturbated reading the bible in your schoolyard behind the toilets.

I didn’t believe you because we both laughed for three blocks of green lights.

You’ve a pretty face and you’re talented, you tell me all the time.

I think the same of myself, but am to embarrassed or coy to admit anything.

You’re the best live show, music in front of open windows in a land of “non-believers.”

I’m the fast-fall-asleeper; when I snore in your ear I can’t hear it, you know.

You’re losing teeth faster than you’ll lose my audience, which is good. 1 tooth down.

I’m the one jumping on the bed while you shake your hands and think lunatic but watch.

You are a natural tri-color: red, brown, black.

I’m an Indian. Dark red. Not angry, this is a natural flush. Maybe it’s excitement.

There’s a mark on you, a part of your forever and tomorrow. Now you’ve given it away.

Gift in hand, I think your small secrets and your ginger-ness are: mine, mine, and mine.

Maybe it’s bad for the psyche to constantly evaluate myself in relation to the physical, outside world. Maybe it’s an ego thing—in order to normalize and validate my existence I seek approval in my immediate environment. I wrote this poem not long after my relationship with “the human taxi” ended and I decided I definitely was not “a martyr for independence.”

FICTION

I am an engine driver—listen to the mandolin and harmonica of free passengers and the thud, chug, pull, of coal and god across pre-destined tracks and wilderness.

I am a tea bag, hot and soft and dark.

It’s my flavor not my body you want.

I am a worm. Hear my rage at being

stomped in two—watch my head

grow back in revenge.

 

I am a question mark, curvy and open.

A suggestion of birth and a point of decay.

 

I am a jester, watch humility change

colors on my face, hear church bells sound

in time with my tricks.

 

I am a bicycle—dirty and broken beside the stairs. See the monkey wrench and toolbox there, near my wheel? I stopped trying to move them with my mind months ago.

 

Still, other times, I feel like my character is a subject of my surroundings; that my perception of me, Cory as Cory, is informed and somehow dependent on the external. Reaction is the measurement of how much the immediate environment alters my character (in degrees.) The difference between tap-dancing in the shower and drunk dancing in a pub is extreme. Having sex in the backseat of a car along a mountainside road and having sex in a tent produces relatively similar discomfort and excitement—relatively similar positions as well I’ve recently noticed. Burping in a library, graveyard, car, pub, tent, is always just that, burping. Some things are constant—lack of couth and love of nature. The following piece is a recount of one hysteric incident in the monotonous life of a bona-fide bartender / empty pool hall cleaner.

 

HOOVERING

There’s something numbing and empowering in the act of Hoover-ing.

Pssh hh pssh hh pssh hh hhhhh hhhhrrr pssh hh pssh hh. Cross-eyed

cleaner. When I yell Suck it to every particle of dust paper scum each one

obeys—vanishes into this duct-taped, loose-wheeled, electrical void.

I am the Queen of carpet and all else filthy and small. I am:

ruler of my unbathed-unbrushed self: alone in a snooker room screaming at

pieces of what once was something bigger.

 

I’m not Frued, Katherine Shay, or Feuerbach, so I don’t have a proper conclusion to these painfully self-involved hypotheses. In fairness, I’m relieved that I can still sing “Getting to Know You” to the mirror after showers. That when I’m beginning to understand who and what I am, I realize that I only have a vague idea of what I need and no idea what I want. Those musings enter the internal dialogue and next thing I know my favorite color is yellow, not green, and I’ve started drinking tea instead of coffee. As long as I don’t start to de-volve, I think I’ll be okay. Still I wish there was some sort of yes or no, right or wrong, some answer to who, what, and why.

Maybe I just need to embrace the idea that sometimes everything isn’t enough and anything will do.