Johnny Lee is singing about playing a fool’s game and I am lost in memories of pizza places with floors covered in sawdust, cigarette machines and Pong.
He was Lookin for Love in all the wrong places and I was rolling my eyes because I knew that girls were nothing but trouble.
Forty or so years later I haven’t really changed my mind. Excuse me while I duck, not a fan of getting smacked with heavy black purses.
What You Don’t Say
I toast Brother Pablo and tell him sometimes what you don’t say is the one thing that will save and or damn your ass.
Pablo doesn’t answer and it is not because he doesn’t know to hablo Ingles or because I didn’t speak to him in Spanish.
It is because he is dead and is just a character inside the writing world I sometimes occupy.
I asked him if he wanted to help write a story but the bastard just watched me pound the keyboard and that ticked me off.
“Dude, I understand if you cannot help but what pisses me off is that your failure to do so has nothing to do with cannot and everything to do with will not.
That is just unacceptable.
He still didn’t respond so I wrote 10,000 words without him and then deleted most of what I wrote.
Sometimes it is better to live with a motto of what you don’t say than to go with what you did.
That Hurt
Crashed into a wall at about 105 or so.
It hurt.
My neck feels like my head tried to tear itself off of it.
Made a mental note to tell my head not to be an idiot. He/we/I didn’t listen.
Too busy following Arnie’s advice to trust our self and to break some rules.
Not to mention the wry smile that worked its way across my lips when I saw what I did to the wall.
Sometimes the boy I used to be finds his way back to the surface. He always waves and encourages me to follow.
Sometimes I do.
The Hand I Was Dealt
Grandpa and dad always said you have to play the hand you are dealt.
This particular round I discovered I received bad cards, very bad.
Someone wants me to fold and there is a part of me that considered doing so. It was rage, fury and frustration.
I did all the right things and things took a turn.
Didn’t please me and neither did the normal platitudes or ideas that adversity builds character. Fuck adversity and fuck character.
I have faced plenty of one and have ample amounts of the other.
But I won’t fold because I have too much invested, too many responsibilities and the fool that challenged me needs to find out I don’t take bets I am not confident of winning.
Well…most of the time I don’t.
Joker’s wild and so am I.
Took the gloves off tonight and peeled off the mask because the only way to get beyond this particular moment is to go through.
Something tells me nothing is going to look or be the same, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Hello transition and hello change.
Sound the horns and ring the bells, the walls are coming down and the gates or being opened or some rot like that.
See you on the other side.
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