Being Honest With Fiction

There has to be something said about the need and the ability to go absolutely crazy.
Love this idea.
There has to be something said about the freedom to lose oneself and to lose your mind and go safely insane.
If there is such a thing.
Even if this is not safe, then . . .
Oh well. So be it.
There has to be a way.
is there?
I don’t know

I only know that there is a purpose.
I know that no matter how old we are, there has to be a part of us that yearns for more and to be younger and stronger than the heart of a lion

I swear, this is something special. No. Wait.
This is life lifesaving –
to go crazy!
What an honor.

There is something crucial about this if not necessary.
We have to live beyond survival.
We have to live beyond existing and yes, we have to find that internal hymn and the personal narrative that acts like the drum which pushes us like hungry soldiers, anxious and ready for battle.

Everyone has to go crazy.
All of us.
We need to let go.
We need to take the phone off the hook, so-to-speak, and disconnect from the so-called real world.
We need to break the rules and walk away from the adjustments we make when we put on the mask and act like good and humble citizens.
We have to find some way or somehow escape from the burdens of everyday life.
We have to break out of this prison before the prison implodes and wears us down.
I swear . . .

To each his own, they say.
And I can understand why.
I know my thrills may seem boring to someone else and my ideas of a good time might be inaccurate to another man’s taste,
I know it is true, “to each his own,” because flavors, taste, desires and motivation can be different. 
And that’s fine.
I’ll have my cake and eat it too.
You can have yours
Or if not, you can hold your pinky up while you sip your tea.
I’ll gulp my coffee like the typical New Yorker I am and find my place elsewhere.

To each his own.
However, every core has a purpose and every soul has the need and the right to cry out and be heard.
Everyone needs “their moment,” in whichever way or form this comes.
And I don’t care what kind of package this come sin.
So long as it comes.

And me . . .
Give me an outdoor festival.
Give me a wild night at a concert
Give me a boat ride out beyond the typical fishing grounds and let me go deep.
Send me a song.
Send me a ticket for a trip to anywhere and let me take the unknown, u expected, and the unbeaten paths,

Let me dance.
Let me sing.
Let me allow the engine in my heart to run at full throttle.
Let me be like my Father used to say about the old 67 Mustang we had when I was a little boy. He’d tell us that sometimes you have to step on the gas and let the car do what it was meant to do. He’d say you have to get the oil running.
I get that.
I do.
More so now than ever before.

I want to do an overnight trip in the ocean and fish for tuna
I want to simplify the complications around me
And here’s how -.
I want to see kids laughing and screaming.
Do you know what I mean?
Remember the days when little kids ran trough lawn sprinklers?
Or how about the cheer from a kid when he heard the sound from a nearby ice cream truck?
Do you remember that?
There was freedom in those cheers.

I want to see kids understand the simple plan and the fun of games like “manhunt” or “hide-and-go-seek.”
I want them to realize what it feels like to run and play and not be tied to a computer screen or chained and leashed like a slave to some kind of technology.

I want a midnight trip to a little park at the side of a school.
I want to be where I can sit on the swings with a girl and talk for hours until the sun comes up.

I want to feel the way I felt the first time I heard the song, “Sweet Thing,” by Van Morrison.
I want to realize that “holy shit!”
Love is not this evasive or elusive thing.
Love is real and love is better than any opiate or narcotic.
No high is this euphoric.

Love is the feeling you have when you are walking on the beach at sunset.
And there you are “with them,” and rolling your pants up to wade in the shallows as the waves climb ashore.

Let me have this.
Let me have the feeling of what it feels like to see a band, live and in person.
Let me feel the engines in my heart as they go into overdrive.
Let me rage harder and louder than ever before.
To hell with age and time and all the mishaps that came from them.


Let me feel the beat and the rhythm and let me dance harder than lightning strikes.
But wait.
That’s not all.
Let me find the simple treasures.
Let me sit and smell the air or taste the sweetness of something better than the best slice of peach or key lime pie.

Let me break the night and stay out past dawn and drive home, like I used to when I wore my younger skin.
Let me watch the sunrise from the beach at Point Lookout.

Let me bury my regrettable yesterdays and say farewell to the nights behind me.
Let me be unafraid of the word goodbye and understand that a brand new “hello” is well deserved.

Let me breathe and say “ahhh” with the relief and let me sigh as the burdens lift from my shoulders.
Let me be the fool without being foolish.
Let me be vulnerable and enjoy it.
Please. Let me.
I beg you, dear Universe.
I am lost wihtout this.

Give me a minute to look around and see the landscape.
Give me a memory that I can look back upon and relive and rethink everything at the hour of my death so that I can say, “oh yeah. I did that!”
“That was me!”

Let me put away the moral conundrums and the bullshit opinions that mean nothing when compared to real life.
Let me place my complaints in a bottle and send them out like a stranded sailor, marooned and shipwrecked, and let me let the tides take these things away from me.
let me let this go with hopes and dreams that my rescuer is alive and well.
Let me know that she was seeking me out the same I have always sought to find her.

Let me break away from the desolation and the stranded abandonment and find myself in the perfect place with the perfect company.
And yes, please, of all things, grant me this:
Bless me with the chance to see her beautiful eyes and understand what it means to never feel lonely again. Ah, to never worry about being left behind or left out/
Let me be where I am supposed to be at the time of contact because dammit to Hell, I don’t want to miss another second of life once all of this comes to me

Or even at minimum, let me have a night where all goes well and my heart is content.
Let me have a moment which comes with gratefulness and understanding. 
I’ll understand that forever is too long to hold someone.
But please . . .
let me try.
give me one last shot.
I beg you.

Let me go nuts.
Let me go crazy.
Let me burn out and fade away, if at all possible.
And even if this causes me to be weak and tired the next day or even if I get so sick that I almost die, then so be it.
Let me have whatever the heavens can spare.
I’ll take it without complaint.
I promise.

I am ready now.
I am ready to step forward and come out of my shell.
And yes . . .
I understand the paradox.
I fully believe that you have to go crazy to keep your own sanity.
So . . .
Let me go crazy.
Let me die again so that I can be reborn.
Figuratively speaking, of course.

We all need to scream or sing as loud as we can.
I know I do.
At minimum, everyone must dance (at least once) and when I say dance; I mean we have to dance like the fire’s burning hot beneath our feet.

I need this.

This is something that has to happen.
I hope so.
It’s been a while too.
I know.
I have not let myself go and so, I can feel the clogging of my arteries and the hardening of my heart.
I need to do what my Father did with the old 67’ Mustang and open up and put my foot on the gas to get the oil moving.

Time is ticking . . .
The hands on the clock keep moving and yes, of course the hour is always later than I think.

The morning is gone and life is gaining momentum.
I see this and I realize that I am past the midway point of my life.
This means my noontime is behind me.
I see how I am approaching the evening of my lifetime.
I recognize this.
In fact, I feel it in my bones and in my heart and soul

Please.
I beg you.
I don’t want to grow old and nor do I want to be so old that I lose touch.
I don’t want the fire in my heart go dim.

I need to be wild.
I see this and I know what happens to dust when it fades.

I have no idea what makes someone crazy or sane, and yet, I want both.

I want to be sane and wild enough to dare and be free.
I want to laugh out loud without needing something extra to shake the edges of my insecurity.
I want my euphoria to come with the longest high that never comes down.

And too, as wild and as crazed as I can be, the most absolute fact is that sweet or wild or mild to hysterical, the lunatic inside me is far smarter than you think.

Therefore, I am wise enough to know that at some point, life can be savored, devoured, or slowly enjoyed in stages.
Most importantly, life needs to be lived.
Life needs to be more than endured or existed.

I know.

I admit to my own personal exhaustion.
I confess that life is filled with ups and downs.
But life is also full of nectar and like the purity of a hummingbird, I need to dip my beak in the sweetest flower to enjoy the taste of nature’s honey

Just one flower though.
Only one.
I don’t want or need another one.
I do not care about variety.
I don’t want that.
I want one . . .
just one

See this?
This is my flower and to me me, this is the most precious and scrumptious because this flower was made “just for me.”
Hers is the most beautiful flower of them all.

I am ready

No more facade.
No more masks
No more “fake it until you make it.”
No more substitutions or settling for less.

I’m ready to go like a madman, unafraid to die because finally, the time has come.
I have died enough to realize what it means to live

Mother of All Creation . . .
. . . pray for me
Comfort me.

Please.
I beg you.