No one talks about the different degrees of manhood or the early years when manhood is on the horizon. But I often find myself questioning the past or the times when I was disloyal to my truths and failed to follow my dreams.
No one notices how the younger freedoms of an earlier life is a fleeting thing, which is moving fast and growing farther behind me. No one sees this until it is too late and the past is a far-moving thing that grows more distant without closure or a proper goodbye.
I say this often enough and yet; I have to say this again. I always believed that age and the future is something that happens to old people.
I swore that I would never grow old.
I would never become too serious.
I swore that I would never be weak and that I would never stop. I swore that I would always be shooting like stars in the post-midnight at pre-dawn and wild like I used to be in the pre-millennium afterhours places in SoHo.
I always wanted to be “something,’ which is not to say that I was nothing.
But in all fairness; something was always missing.
I was myself, of course, and as young as being young could be.
I was eager and yearning, hoping to find a bolt of lightning and keep it in a bottle for lightning’s sake.
Forget about nostalgia.
Forget about the memories of wild nights in the past.
Forget about that walk on the beach after a night out on New Year’s Eve.
it was me and me alone.
I was dressed in a black suit with a black shirt, black shoes, longhaired and wild with two hoop earings in my left ear.
I was living the life. Or so I tried
And yet, I was alone and thinking about the emptiness of a bed with no one else in it
(but me)
I was neither aware nor ignorant and nor was I too blind to see the risks and the rewards of being crazy.
I was crazy. Sure.
I was crazy like a young man in his 20’s, and searching for a great madness which was otherwise unchangeable and irretrievable.
I was far from where I wanted to be and further from whom I wanted to be.
I was alive in some regards and I had died too many times in other ways.
I wanted to dare the world.
I still do.
I wanted to taste the $5,000 bottle of wine, so-to-speak. I wanted to dance and move with a girl in the trance-like club scenes where the music pouned, and the flashing lights turned the room into a euphoric substitute.
I was high without the synthetic doses, which I had sworn off during a afternoon on April 1. 1991.
I wanted the high above all highs and the one that came with a promise instead of the tragic falls, much like the falls so many of my previous friends suffered, —and they, the “still sick and suffering” found their own execution with needles in their.
And they, my old and childhood bought their tickets on the fast ride while smoking their glass pipe and crackhead destructions until their sad and tragic deaths.
Or the few and the unproud who I remember well,; and they, the speed freaks who dosed their manic lives to a wired consistency until finally, their hearts exploded like a car revving too high and going nowhere.
I had my nights of chaos and days while dancing with the dragons and the demons and the devils at the old drug spots or on corners, like 116th and Park.
I was done with that life.
I was done with the misperceived highs that promised a sick version of heaven. I was doe with the quick fixes that brought me up while sinking me down to the punishment of Hell on Earth.
I was done with dying like that and heading towards a demise that killed good people like my old friend, Mike the Rocket or Jimmy the Cook.
I wanted to meet my other half. I wanted to do the walks, like the kind I always dreamt about, —walking the streets in New York City, The Village, and passing the spot where Jim Carroll wrote about the time when he passed where Frank O’Hara stayed.
I wanted to find my better half or the other side of me. I assumed she would be like the romantic seal of beautiful completion —and so, through the power vested in the universe and all the knowing gods; I wanted to find my perfect match.
I wanted the girl who somehow comforted the broken corers of my soul and thus; I would be alright to be me and alright to show her what I meant when I read her my first poem.
It is still true
it is still you
I suppose this will always be the case because as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever
Right?
No one can fight fate. Not sucessfully anyway.
No one can oppose the undefeated nature of both fate and destiny, —and remember, same as they never lose, age and time are equally undefeated.
I need to remember that,
I wanted to dare it all. And I still do.
I wanted to romance the rooftops and engage in the wildest formats of lustful love
I still want to.
I want this feeling overflowing and flooding my body with an undying aphrodisiac known as real life.
This is life with the right girl
not the wrong one
And my past brought me to this
back to you
because . . .
no
There is no such thing as happenstance or accidents when it comes to soulmates or true love.
I wanted to feel the lights from the late-night venues and feel the buzz I always imagined in the Downtown, cobblestone streets.
New York City. Ahhh
More than my greatest estimations of Heaven and worst than my damned and merciless assumptions of Hell, I was only sure of one thing.
More than my assumptions of wealth and beyond my imaginary beliefs of having the right car or the right house, the right job, and the right code to the executive men’s bathroom; —I have always wanted the wild and tameless need to love unapologetically.
I want to be free and to dare the sunset and live until the following sunrise during the next morning, just to make love on the balcony when the sun comes up
I understand the need for wealth and a good career and to have a savings account and health insurance.
But what I want is far more expensive than this and money could never buy it.
I know this
I know this more now than ever before and still, my needs are far more wild and my desires are far more beautiful than when I was just a man in his 20’s.
My plethora of tomorrows ran thin and since time is running out, I wat to make new memories that outlive me and outshine the sun.
Some of my warmest summers were colder than winter.
I can assure you of this.
Some of the coldest winters were warmer than the hottest days in August.
I remember a snowfall in November.
God, how beautiful
Years back—
there was a movie where a group of kids were on a hunt for treasure.
They found themselves at the bottom of a wishing well.
One of them started to collect the change.
Someone interrupted and said how these are someone’s wishes.
One of the mouthier kids said, “See this one right here? This one was my dream. My wish!”
And then he took it back.
“I’m taking them all back!” he said
But to credit and salute the movie I will repeat the words, “Goonies never say die!”
Goonies . . .
I was a kid when that movie came out.
I’ve made countless wishes so far.
I don’t want my wishes back.
Not my dreams either.
I want my wish to come true.
I want to walk the walk downtown and talk for hours.
I want that connection that no one else can bring me.
I want to make love on the beach.
I want to be wild on a rooftop.
I want the love of my life to know that the poem is still true,
If I listen,
I can hear you in my thoughts
And if I look
I can see you in my dreams
and on the movie screens
behind the walls of my eyelids. But I only hope
that one day soon—
I will hold you in my arms
Forever~
