I am i

I only notice the loneliness when I am in the company of people. Surrounded by strangers I have to talk to, I find I have nothing to say, I find it hurts.

Got an email today from my step-dad, he is 69 and just got dumped. He moved to Vermont from Corsica for this woman, on her insistence, who now has decided to return to her ex-husband in Switzerland or some such where. I am not laying blame here...but for fucks sake. Women are crazy, you learn this with time, yet it still catches you out. Until someone devises a truly workable alternative, we are stuck with them.

I like the cafe culture, I have come to feel at my most stable and peaceful in a quiet corner of a bustling city cafe where I can write undisturbed, where people I will never have to speak to drift by me never to be seen again. We will never run out of new faces to look at and I am glad. Even from the darkest, most cruel and cold nights I can find solace here in the daylight, in anonymity, amongst all these strangers, with just a pen for company. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I can relax here. Here, I am happy to let life slowly slip away from me. Other peoples busy-ness somehow exonerates me from it all.

I have a fucking big smile on my face and a warm feeling in my heart. A melancholic tune plays in the background and twangs a little on my heartstrings, just enough to make me feel this moment is real. I suddenly feel like striking a guitar pose and shouting at the top of my lungs – ‘FUCK YEA!’

I have to return to my digs shortly, have to talk to people again, people I know. I have to make sense. Say not what I am thinking, but what is appropriate and acceptable and least likely to cause offense. I will speak and listen to emptiness and wonder why or what could possibly be said to make it better.

I don’t believe I will die before tasting love again. I hope I can meet its expectations. I had hoped to find fulfilment out here in this new country. I guess I always was a romantic dreamer. Who knows, maybe she exists, maybe she does. Just try to remember – women are crazy. It’s not hard to make it work, you just have to play it right; Don’t sink too deep in comfort, don’t let too much of yourself go, and always keep an eye on the exit routes.

I sat by the pool today, watched a man pull a small terrapin from a plastic box. He petted its head then kissed it, all the while talking coochy-coo. I was struck by how contentedly in love he looked. It was some kind of bliss. The thought struck me that he was crazy. Ha! Like we aren’t all driven gently into complete fucking lunacy. I concluded that I was happy for him. I smiled a genuine smile when he looked at me, it gave me a warm feeling, and that seemed somehow a good thing, like it mattered.

Then, I leant my head back, looked up high above the tower block I currently wait in. The sun burning into my skin, burning into my eyes, at once loving yet looking for ways to kill me at the same time. That’s how it is. And love is just another burning sun.

Wars rage someplace far away, man pushes computers into space trying to figure out where, what and why he is. All the while birds, animals and plants just do their thing and already know, or just don’t care. I lie here wondering about all the things there are to wonder, while across from me a simpleton finds completion in an inch long amphibian that can't ever speak or act to hurt him. My step-dad sleeps a fitful sleep of pending pain and anguish on the other side of the world, a pain and loss he is probably too old to heal. Somewhere a new life just entered the world as another one exited. My heart pumps blood without me ever having asked it to, and I have no idea why I came here or what I am supposed to do with it at all.

A sunburst refracts off a broken window not far from where I sit splitting all the colours of life into my eyes and across my words. I feel wondrous. I feel alive, afraid, and despite all my fears or maybe because of them, I am hungry for it.