Just This Side of Paradise Baby
I can’t tell you exactly how I knew what I knew when I first saw you. I just knew. You know that kind of ‘you just know’ you’ve heard happening to others from those who knew, like they had just been struck by lightning. It’s the ‘you just know’ part that you never really give a whole lot of thought to much less the possibility it could happen to one day happen to you. I mean life is already crazy enough without that kind of shit happening right? But there you were. The door opened and in you walked immediately filling the room with a certain frenetic energy not for the faint of heart. The kind of energy most people write off as crazy because they’re too scared to swim in it. Me, I wanted to drown in it. Not to mention that it was happening in a room that reeked of booze, buzz and bullshit in the best possible way of course. What’s life in the fast lane without a little stench? Anyone who knows my personal history knows I’ve always been a serial dater and the chances of being struck by the lightning were less that probable. Most of the things with any significant meaning in my life seem to have happened in dark, dank rooms or as result of questionable situations, so why not this one. It wasn’t the first time that feeling had happened to me but it was the first time it happened like this.
I’ve always been one of those, love the girl who you know will crawl into your bed and then into your head and ruin your life type of guys. I can’t say I ever really minded it. I mean, even at the end of a long run, the painful part when you part ways often not amicably I wallowed in the sewer of emotional pain. It always reminded me I was alive. I’ve always had a problem connecting with people in general. I mean there are those I am close to, very close to, then there are those I’m undeniably emotionally connected to, then there are those I kind of just kind of there with at a moment in time. But connecting on certain levels has always proven a bit difficult for me. It’s kind of like being in a room full of smiling, laughing people trying to be the same while feeling while being stuck in a dark closet looking in from the outside. So I knew I was on to something when I first saw you and self said to me, “yeah ok, this one is all kinds of crazy and anything that can go wrong will most definitely go wrong but what the fuck, if you can’t be good at least be good at being bad.” Then my heart, the exact thing I should never trust, I’ve had infinitely more luck listening to my dick than my heart, my heart grabbed me and said, “Crazy or not, this is the very quite possibly the one, the one that can make it all alright, the one that might make this crazy, fucked up, wild ride through life worth it all.” A life filled with staccato memories stitched together by hard earned experience and bound by angst and tears, a crazy life frayed around the edges. Just the way I like it. Then self said, “by the way you’re fucking crazy too so what’s the difference.”
So just as I have with most every insane thought leading up to the utter madness that I now call the wreck of my life I just kind of went with it, the feelings in my twisted sense of romance that is. Yeah this one was hot, in a dirty stepsister sort of way, innocent and still a Lolita all at the same time. You could see all kinds of demented in her eyes, all the years of forced childhood medication that led to various abuse, self-inflicted or otherwise culminating in a healthy dose of self-medication. It was obvious that her world like mine was filled with a little bit of loneliness. But that with a little work she could fill that little bit of loneliness but on it that depends on the quantity of whiskey and the quality of friends. So it was insane from the start. But I mean hey, what’s a good romance without a healthy dose of fucking insanity? Why pass up the opportunity to see how truly epic two people can be in the sac, and then at moments notice go for each others throats like they’re shucking oysters as they brutally tear each other’s lives to shreds completely destroying any evidence of emotional well-being. But isn’t emotional well being is a little too over-rated anyway? Who wouldn’t want to get involved in some shit like that? I have been, and every time I’ve narrowly escaped with my balls intact. A few times with them stuffed in my back pocket as I leapt out the bedroom window muttering foxhole prayers promising myself that I’ll never do that again. Ha ha, we both know that’s complete bullshit. No sooner than I’m out of it do I find myself on the same train wreck waiting to crash and burn all over again. That’s the fun in life, never knowing just what the fuck is going happen next right?
Anyone who has ever known me, I mean truly known me on any real level knows at the end of the day I’ve always been a hopeless romantic. The big ‘L’ always wins in the end right? I mean man this shit goes back to kindergarten and the first time I saw that cute little blond seated in the desk behind me. A life filled with infatuation and lust. Maybe that’s why I’m a bit sad and demented and slightly twisted, because I still believe in sad, sappy shit shit like courtship and romance yet it just never seems to work out that way. Few know the true extend of my dementedness but I’m sure they can guess. Still, in some odd way I still believe in finding that right one, a soul mate. The one who can shed light on the darkness, well you get the point. The kind of shit any normal, socially functional, non self-delusional person gave up on a long time ago. Yes, any normal guy moved on to the real world after his first two or three broken hearts and empty wallets. That time you came home and all your shit was gone and all she left was the lint. Yeah I’ve been there for that one. Me, I’ve been avoiding that real world for a long time now, an even longer time than most. It hasn’t always served me well to do that but you know what? I’ve never been sorry for it. I find myself still leaving my wallet on the dresser with every girl working girl or otherwise who passes through my sheets. Take what you need just leave me my balls. The way I’ve got it figured is why fuck up a good thing. If I’m on a roll don’t kick her outta bed just yet.
So in that moment I thought, this one is for all that’s broken ones that cannot be fixed, which is a whole fuck of a lot. Someone once said to me, “if she’s old enough to cut her own meat, she’s fair game.” God I loved that guy. He didn’t know how right he was figuratively speaking that is. I just wanna make that clear. But this one, yeah she was of a good age, not fresh and totally firm but still ripe and a long way from moldy. I’ve already done my time so I’m not in a hurry to do anymore. These days just looking at the wrong girl cross-eyed will get you ten years and a short-eyes sheet guilty or not. Speaking of doing time, believe it or not some of the most romantic, love poems I’ve ever read composed by the most emotionally tortured by love guys I ever met were guys doing a bit. So what if he stretched out three people over a couple of hundred bucks in dope, stuck up a card game or knocked down some bank. Even bad guys have hearts too right? Sometimes they’re bigger than most, they just got just bad timing. They should have been thinking of those big hearts and mad romance skills while they were taking down the score that ended them up in the gray bar motel writing the love letters. But who the fuck am I to judge. I’ve done some of my finest work while sitting chest to knees on my bunk paper pad and pencil in hand. Writing home to her about how I miss her and how much I’ve changed and learned my lesson and am ready to fly right. Ha ha more bullshit of course. Good intentions but complete bullshit nonetheless. That shit only lasts as long as the bit or until someone sets down a score in front of me. Thankfully those days are gone.
But we are who we are at the core right? Me, I’m a hopeless romantic seeking love in all the wrong places. And this one, this one is going be the best one yet, either that or it’s going be so fucked up that not even the magic of movies will be able to make this one look good. But they keep saying the right one is just around the corner right? Maybe until then until that happens we can take each other to just this side of paradise.
A Gypsy Road 
Recent Comments