No one knows.
No one really knows what goes on in your head or your heart.
Even if you tell someone your thoughts, they can only understand you from their own perspective.
No one knows how you feel.
No one knows what it feels like to have a cut in my skin or a bone that never healed right or the aches in my back.
But then again, this is me.
As for you . . .
No one feels your pain or your pleasure.
No one knows what color looks like from your eyes.
And I know this.
I know because I say this all the time.
I have no idea what the color red looks like to you. I have no idea what the waves at Point Lookout feel like on your skin nor will I ever see the sunset through your eyes.
No one knows what it’s like to wake up and get out of bed and face your life or your struggles. Even more, nobody knows what it took for you to stand up when you swore that you couldn’t.
I don’t know the world from your point of view.
But if I can, or if you allow, I’d like to sit with you for a while.
I’d love to talk with you, or smile.
I’d love to watch the sun descend and watch the colors of the horizon turn golden.
But again, this is me.
I never asked or wanted to give my share to narcissism. I never wanted to be bad, per se, nor do I want to go on this way.
Not at all.
If anything, I am looking to create the best comeback of them all.
I want to change my life, from the smallest to the greatest challenge. When I do, I want to build an empire so that I can share this and comfort those (like me) who are lost, broken, missing in action, or otherwise done or finished with their life, as it is.
I swear, people only know what they see or feel for themselves. I agree, there are good people. However, I also agree that people have their own agenda, which is not always or altogether terrible.
I have my own agenda too. The difference in my agenda is that now I realize that selfish, self-centered bullshit is not only deadly, but self-destructive.
However, I confess that I am guilty of either minimizing or simplifying someone else’s pain. I have scoffed and dismissed people for their complaints or their struggles.
So, I admit to my own insensitivity. I admit to my own callousness, which is a flaw or a defect of character, I’m sure. I am quite familiar with the 7 Deadly Sins. I know them all well, which is why I do not stand so tall or believe that I have the right to judge anyone.
As I have been told, the last person to walk on water died a long time ago, and as the story goes, I hear that people didn’t treat him so well either.
More honestly, I suppose I think to myself about how I have my own hang-ups or “real problems,” and I think this because I am selfish. This is not self-deprecating.
No, I call this honesty.
I think other people should try this as well.
I often forget the one truth which is that a person is in crisis when they “feel” like they’re in crisis.
My opinion or relationship with them or their problem is not my place or my business.
And I?
Me or you?
No one has a right to degrade someone’s crisis or minimize it just because we think, behave, or believe differently.
I have listened to people who live with different compulsions and problems. I have listened to people tell me about their world and how they find themselves enslaved to a lifestyle that they cannot stop or get away from.
I understand this. No, really.
I do.
I understand that I might not have the same struggles as you or anyone else. I might not see the same things or have the same fears. I see what I see.
I might never understand the colors of your life or your perspective.
But this is okay. There’s no insult here.
This allows me to be me and you to be you.
I don’t know what it feels like to lose blood from someone else’s body. I don’t know what lifting weights are like with someone else’s muscles. I know how weight feels like to me. And sure, I’ve been cut before. I’ve bled before too and I have the scars to prove it. But this does not make me an authority on pain, feelings, or emotion.
Therefore, I do not minimize what it feels like for anyone to live or breathe or move beyond an area that keeps someone stuck in a life that consists of “more of the same.”
More of the same means that life spins in an unwanted loop. This can be tragic, or simple and lifeless, or humdrum, and dull.
More of the same . . .
This could be when life is too safe, too simple, and this comes with no victories, no huge conquests, and no outrageous feelings of adrenaline or surges that creates the rise and fall and brings us to success.
I have seen, lived, and experienced a robotic lifestyle before.
All is the same. I have been “that guy,” with no zest or thrill for much more than food, which admittedly, was another drug of choice for me.
Dull. Humdrum.
More of the same, or otherwise known as purposeless.
Life like this means getting up in the morning, eating, washing myself, and then going, moving around like the other maze-walkers in life and commuting to a dead-end job that comes with no satisfaction or personal gratification.
Everything is rinse and repeat, all so that I can come home to return and repeat once again.
This is more of the same.
No thrills.
No vision for the future.
No pitfalls or major disappointments either.
No real pain to speak of except, of course, there is the painful realization that “this is it!” and life comes at you with an unremarkable value that does nothing else but defeats our purpose.
This is as good as it gets.
And I lived this way too. Nothing was great. Everything was flat and uninspiring.
Everything I ever wanted or wished for was settled and sold for a discounted rate.
No, really. This is true,
I traded my hopes and dreams as well as my purpose for a packaged deal — just so I could belong somewhere or be human enough to pretend that I have a real life — or that I was normal.
More of the same is also what happens to a life that’s lived in mediocre fashion, which is mundane or tired at best.
I go. I do.
I mow the lawn on Sundays, unless it rains.
I sit at a breakfast table, eating mindlessly, and reading news from a paper so that I can curse at politicians or complain about the neighbor who voted for the opposite party.
Who wants this life?
I don’t.
Not me.
Everything about this life is like the feeling of buying everything with coupons or being excited about the shorter line at the cash register in the supermarket. Not that coupons or the short lines are bad.
I just don’t want this to be the best thing that happens to me all week.
A life that’s more of the same –
No excitement.
No love or the rooftop fantasies.
No desire.
No thrills of being dangerous or to do something, like being wild enough to have sex in a place that is otherwise unmentionable, unspeakable, or amazingly inappropriate.
I think I need this.
I need to be alive.
I need to be electric.
I need to try new things or to dance a new dance. Or better, I want to try new foods and taste real life.
Is this too much to ask?
I want this like I want to see the coming of life as it returns this coming spring. I want my breath to represent life and not be so tired all the time.
Yes, when the time comes, I think I need to hold your hand and sit back to watch the sunset.
We can do this anywhere you like, but I’m sure that you know I have my own places in mind.
I need to feel the subtleness of romantic music in the background with a firelight in the foreground and me, and you, and the moon and the stars above — I need all of this and more because, yes, I understand I have work and bills and real life to contend with.
I understand the cost of living goes up.
Not down.
I see this at the gas station each time I go to fill my tank so I can drive over the 59th Street bridge.
I know all about the cost of living.
Or better, I know all about the cost of food, which is out of this world.
But hey, such is life in New York, and such are my dreams as I live in a “New York” state of mind.
I know reality all too well, or at least I know what’s real to me.
I suppose I want to change this for myself (and you).
I have to.
I want to alter my reality.
I want to change the mediocrity of this so-called adulthood and exchange my tired perception for something more relevant, or alive and upbeat.
I want to dare it all.
I want to bet my life, and push my chips forward and say, “all in!”
I want to bet everything I have and every last dollar, nickel or cent.
So what if I lose?
Losing is not so strange to me.
Losing means nothing. I’ve lost plenty of times.
I’ve gone broke before.
But at least I dared. At least I tried.
At least I rolled the dice.
At least I dared the law or dared the truth. While I confess my road never turned where I’d hoped, at least I took the ride to see if I could find myself beyond my wildest dreams.
I am here now.
The funds are lower than I had wished for.
And the nights are often difficult or lonesome.
But this is my life (for now).
I get that.
I might have lost more than ever before.
But if I’m honest, I’d rather have dared and found out than lived and played it safe.
I don’t want to ever live like a robot again and stay with more of the same.
I cannot brighten or spark the ignition for you or anyone else.
But I can shine a brighter light for myself – so I can see . . .
I have no promises or guarantees, and I cannot say we will live at the tallest penthouse in New York City. I have no travel plans for today nor can I say how we’ll fly or if we will fly in business class or not.
I cannot say that we will always stay at the greatest resorts, but I can promise that I will dare the sunset and the sunrise and that I never call it quits until the day I die.
And even then, even if I die — I swear that I will come back like a ghost with a mission and I will haunt the lifeless lullabies until they brighten their eyes and sharpen their smiles.
I swear it.
But for now,
dance with me, please.
Just once.
Just one dance.
We can dare the world or make love on the rooftop. Or we can have sex on the beach or in a car, in a bathroom at Starbucks, or we can touch each other under the table at some five-star restaurant — and we can smile our guilty smiles at the waiter or waitress when they ask, “Is everything okay over here?”
I don’t think people know what it takes to move on or go forward nor do I think that people are aware of how much it hurts or disturbs someone when a person says, “you need to just get over it.”
Fuck that.
I’m not getting over anything.
No.
I’m about to dare the world again. I’ll do this with a vengeance and with all my heart.
I will bet it all again and be wilder and everything because fuck it all, I don’t want more of the same.
I don’t want more of the same, unless its more of the same happiness.
I want it all. I want the trill.
I want the feeling in my shorts when I see you when you arrive and walk into my view.
I want to see that look on your face when you see me and realize that no . . . I’m not fucking around.
Not anymore.
I’m ready.
I don’t have much, but what I have is mine.
And I’m ready to place it all on the table so that I can go “all in,” and bet it all,
— again!
Fuck the consequences or the pain if I lose,
at least I’m willing to roll the dice.
I’ll take what comes after
Even if I lose.
But what if I win?
Know what I mean?
The Written Addiction 