Tuesday, January 13, 2009

This year or so

Did you come inside me?
Yes.
I'm not taking the pill.
WTF.

***

I leave Zenita at the gate.
She is crying.
She says she's unwell.
I think she just wants to stay at home.
Later, Mrs Zen tells me Zenita has been complaining of being unwell.

***

I feel worn out.
Who am I kidding?
I don't feel anything,
except a pain in my chest
that comes and goes.
I think it's an outcome of smoking
but two nights ago it beat in time with my heart.
I was surprised how slowly it pulsed.
It didn't hurt enough to worry me.

***

I had a dark moment,
dwelling on my dissolution,
my demise.
Why worry?
I've never feared what I couldn't change.
At least I didn't until I was *mumbles*.
Then I realised I was fucked
and I didn't relish the realisation.
It felt like I had already died.
And maybe I have
because this doesn't feel like living.

***

I am looking at Naughtyman's smile
and the parrots are in the trees
and I do not know anything I can do
to stop this world from crushing the life
out of us in the end.
I touch his face
and his skin is soft and you have to wonder
what forms it will take
and will I see them?
Because I do not know how much I will see of him
after this year or so.

***

I don't believe we can give up.
I think we have to try harder
because we are not compatriots.
I think that just blaming me
would not be enough
because our kids are innocents
even if we are not.
Not that I feel particularly guilty.
I have flaws
but it's not like I developed them yesterday
and I have a lot to offer.
You don't.
Have you ever stopped to think
whether you actually do?
When you are thinking about
how I owe you so much,
are you also thinking about
whether you paid for any of it?
Well, are you?

12 Comments:

At 11:12 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sometimes Z you get on a tear and words pop out of you like a pimple's been squeezed, good words, why can't you write like that all the time instead of being a schoolmarm scolding the Israeis or fuckever?

"I don't believe we can give up.
I think we have to try harder"


Well we can give up worrying about outcomes and try harder to pay attention to events, can't we?

"...and I have a lot to offer.
You don't.
Have you ever stopped to think
whether you actually do?"


What a twatty thing to say, mate; the best one can hope to do is have nothing to offer and nothing to need, but just to be what one is, truly.

Remember how Billy Pilgrim came unstuck from time? Ever think you might possibly come unstuck from stuff?

Unstuck from the need to see some quackter who'll fill you with witchdoctery fears and feed his wallet? Fucksake, you probably sit square on your ass the entire day, and smoke yourself into oblivion (that's the good part) then worry yourself into a crushed heap.

Fuck it bro, just be. If you could fully be who you are for just a squink of time, you'd find there's more.

 
At 2:01 am, Blogger G.R.I.T said...

Did you come inside me?
Yes.
I'm not taking the pill.
WTF.


Um, Zen, a post-coital Q&A session is not the time to be making this kind of discovery.

Sometimes Z you get on a tear and words pop out of you like a pimple's been squeezed, good words

Amen, boots. Good post.


"...and I have a lot to offer.
You don't.
Have you ever stopped to think
whether you actually do?"

What a twatty thing to say, mate;


boots, we have all of us known someone we think is capable of more than they give and it's human nature to wish better things both for and from them - you're the same toward the relationships you care about, why shouldn't Zen be?

 
At 3:15 am, Blogger Looney said...

Isn't it good form (learned the hard way here, I suppose) to refer to your host in the manner he's used?

Just sayin'...

 
At 11:31 am, Blogger Looney said...

Ah, gotcha. So you'll be a dick until he stops being a dick. The mind boggles. Your negotiating skills seem quite as poor as you claim his to be.

It's like Israel and Hamas in microcosm.

Of course, in this case, you *are* on *his* "land..."

 
At 11:33 am, Blogger Dr Zen said...

And he's only firing spittle, rather than rockets.

You should note though, Anthony, that Hamas is and long has been willing to negotiate with Israel. It's only Israel that refuses to try to achieve peace.

 
At 9:10 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

boots sez:

"boots, we have all of us known someone we think is capable of more than they give and it's human nature to wish better things both for and from them - you're the same toward the relationships you care about, why shouldn't Zen be?"

P, that bit completely lost me, I'm not sure what you're saying about who; sorry.

 
At 12:18 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Dave
Deleting my comments says it all, well done.

I'll leave the "mindless, pathetic ranting to you as you're so much better than me.

Things you'd never say to Dave, Lets do it again,it was fun!

 
At 1:49 am, Blogger Looney said...

Ah, but now my little witticisms have no context... :-)

 
At 8:26 am, Blogger G.R.I.T said...

boots said

P, that bit completely lost me, I'm not sure what you're saying about who; sorry.


You further qualified what I was saying (no matter how strongly, and it is strongly, I disagree with your gender generalisation here) by mentioning what you have learned from your wife and what she has learned from you - not to the extent that you have been untrue to yourselves, I hope, but you both apparently learned. What if in 30 years she had learned nothing and you were still 'not nice'? What if neither of you had learned? Would you still be together? For sure? It's the hopes you have for people you care about, even in meagre compromise - and their subsequent attempt to rise to the challenge - that can build, strengthen and ultimately ensure the survival of a relationship. I know this because I can be an uncompromising cunt when there's a Y in the day's name... and there's an alphabetical list of people, once in my life, who had no mind to put up with that from me.

If we are all just "what one is" then we are exactly that: one. Relationships are hard work and one is not one any longer, one becomes (best case scenario) seven eighths of one - the rest belongs entirely to the parasitical bastards we call friends and lovers and spouses and children. And we don't mind, usually, giving that one, two or three parts of our whole selves because what we give is rewarded. Going unrewarded is okay too, to an extent. Most of us get slapped down now and then for our best or well intended efforts - but to be relentlessly and perpetually unrewarded... man, what's the fucking point if you ain't going to heaven anyway?

Grant said
Things you'd never say to Dave, Lets do it again,it was fun!

Easy for you to say, with your news server and news reader.

 
At 1:00 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

boots sez:

P, you wrote

"I disagree with your gender generalisation here"

Funny thing about generalization, no matter what it regards someone will disagree on the basis of some exception either real or imaginary.

"What if in 30 years she had learned nothing and you were still 'not nice'?"

Hello, I still ain't nice.

"- but to be relentlessly and perpetually unrewarded... man, what's the fucking point if you ain't going to heaven anyway?"

What I've found is that the only way to be "relentlessly and perpetually" unrewarded is to continually demand that treatment; even a blind squirrel sometimes finds a nut.

It's a bit like those tests for psychic ability. You score high enough they say "you got psychic abilities". You score too low and they say "you got psychic abilities and you're denying them".

What I'm saying here for the slow reader (not you, P) is that nothing can be quite that shit unless a part of you gets a real kick out of the pain.

 
At 11:11 am, Blogger AJ said...

What I'm saying here for the slow reader (not you, P) is that nothing can be quite that shit unless a part of you gets a real kick out of the pain.

Now that's just not true. Things CAN be just that shit, and one not get any kind of kick out of it, if there is a strong reason (real or imagined) why one puts up with it.

Example: a situation of physical abuse. Fear can be a major reason for staying in the relationship as much as it can be for getting out of it. But you can't honestly believe the one being abused is getting a kick out of it?

In Zen's case, though one could boil it down to we stay together or we don't, the reasons for staying together are of such value (3 of them under the age of 8), we don't seems like it isn't even an option, not when it means putting half of the entire planet between you and them, and so the shit continues. Unless you're saying the kick that he gets out of things being "quite that shit" are the children. But I don't think that you can simplify it like that.

 
At 9:48 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Arleen wrote

"Now that's just not true. Things CAN be just that shit, and one not get any kind of kick out of it, if there is a strong reason (real or imagined) why one puts up with it."

I know you have memory issues (you mentioned them earlier) but not knowing you very well I don't know what other issues you might have.

There are always reasons for everything. It's part of how things work. On the flip side of every thing-coin is the reason-side.

And now you're telling me the thing-side can read "shit" and the reason-side can read "notshit"?

I'm sorry. I'm unaware of having any memory issues, but I too am old enough to have forgotten having them.

 

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