Soliloquy: I’m not what I think I am, nor am I what you think of me. I’m, uh. I’m a rough shave, a bumpy terrain. Feel me, baby. I’m as smooth as a cow tongue. I’m a gnarled pacifier. I’m a hammock twisting in the breeze. I’m a reasonable undertaking never taken seriously. I’m a weakness in the knees, warranted. I’m a ravaged woman slunk over a turnpike with pained, neon-glazed eyes. I’m a dysfunctional widget, hastily drawn, now fading on the white-board. I’m a country you have trouble locating on a map. I might be a singing and I might a song; what’s sure is I have yet to catch on. I’m a Siren without the sex appeal, without a paddle, without the proper pitch or tone. I’m a neglected bowl of hard-candy on your grandmother’s coffee table. I’m a constant kicking-and-screaming, a squeamish child at the dentist. Most nights, I’m a miserable view, a sight for sore eyes, a movie you have to sit through. Yesterday I felt about as interesting as a jar of paste: the day reeling before my eyes like bad sitcom, nothing on. Priorities disordered, unevenly stacked, mixed and matched: I’m a lost-and-found bin. Because of stubborn pride, I’ve ruled against myself most of my life; I’ve been a dying dynasty, an impotent king, shooting blanks, no male heir to inherit my kingdom of rubble. Still . . . I’m nobody’s charity case, nobody’s broken piggy bank—fiberglass snout shoveled in. If you find me shattered, in pieces, leave me shattered, in pieces . . . but “if you can fix me up, girl, we’ll go a long way. ”

No Apologies

(8:00 PM) From Dusk to the Depths of Darkness: met some old friends out ’round the north-western bend of the city. The pub was like any other pub at 8:00 PM: dauntingly spacious, sparsely peopled. The jeering bartender slowly garnered my support. One drink led to two and two’s where it started. First came the alcohol-induced noose, swaying above. Next, my lubricated mush of a mind oozed out my orifices. Loose lips, sinking friendships. I spoke openly, liberally, without filter: I put a dicey remark here; I set a sexual vulgarity there; I played the caricature of a hard-headed, rhetoric-spewing homophobe; I brought to light a secret I wouldn’t have even thought to keep obscured in my own shadows. In short: I showed very little, if any, verbal restraint around these not-so-familar friends. I took my shots, stabbed the dark–and I laughed and we laughed, and did I ever laugh!–then I capsized–“went too far” or was deemed “rude” or “joked about what one can never ever never ever joke about”–and I washed up on the shore like defenseless whale, dryly gasping for water as my slighted lady-friend gave me an earful–as she feasted on me, a fleet of shrieking seagulls, nitpicking my grubby, blubbery guts.

(10:35 PM) Another Bar. She was sore about whatever it was I said but she feigned enjoyment for a couple hours running. Then she started alluding to what I let willingly slip two hours before. She turned sullen, unnecessarily confrontational, making these snide, bitter comments to her friends, outright or under her breath, twirling her hair as if to say, “Oh, I’m over it. I know I was right” We pressed on. We all pretended otherwise, pretended the best we could, but the wet-blanket feeling was draped over me. My night-out was sullied, tainted. So I turned quiet. Sipped my drink, smiled some, held back. But christ!–whenever she’d cut in or out with some dickhead-ed remark, I wanted to, but refrained from, telling her that I thought she was acting incredibly “cunty.”

SIDEBAR: “Cunt” is a hugely effective word in America, isn’t it? To me, being christened a Cunt is no different than being christened an unbelievable, unapologetic, inscrutable Asshole. But “Cunt” still has umph, power behind it. This is why I use it. And I use the word sparingly, and will happily say it to both sexes, in jest or in criticism. All in all, irrespective of whether you’re packing a vagina or not, if we are friends, I’ve probably called you a cunt.

. . . “cunty” was on the tip of the tongue. “Hey, Ms. Blank,” I wanted to blurt out. “You’re acting a little cunty right now. What say you . . . should we solve this and–I don’t know!–just let bygones be bygones, just let it go?“ Cunty? Man, oh, man—there’s no cunting way I could have stuck that comedic-landing. And, even if I threw out, with lightening-bolt speed, a wee “cunty” . . . this friend of mine would’ve surely taken this perceived misstep as an opportunity to paint me a belligerent misogynist, label me a man whose demeaning use of the big bad C-word illuminates his subconscious desire to chauvinistically slap his metaphorical hammer-Cock across, what he believes to be, her weaker, happily subservient, intellectually inferior, housewifey woman-face. Of course, this wouldn’t have been the case, had I called her out, had I called it like I saw it. But surprise, no surprise: I’m chock-full of potentially insensitive, apparently offensive remarks.

Standing My Ground. If you know me, you know this: I’m nobody’s idea of a crowdpleaser. Frankly, I’m put off by serious people: self-righteous, hypersensitive absolutists, blind to context, deaf to ironic cadence–their dull senses, so excruciatingly susceptible to shock. Better to be daring, to be lewd and provocative, to take a fucking chance(!) than to sourpuss your way through life, shielding and shutting yourself off from others in the name of politeness, properness and—christ, forget it, you agreeable bores! Why don’t you all just go ahead, go on without me? Go on, leave me behind, because I can’t bear your well-mannered scrutiny one moment longer . . . as you snobbishly purse your lips, as the color drains from your face, as you shake your humorless head at a little this, a little that. Go on, leave me be! There’s no convincing someone who’s as grounded in conventionality as you. Nothing–absolutely nothing!–is off limits. That’s pure. That’s simple. I can’t tend to everyone’s every need. I’m fed up but I’m not backing down. I won’t be a pushover any longer. I’m not toeing the curb, I’m crossing their neat little lines. I am what I am and I’m done apologizing for that.

Youth Incarnate

(12:45 AM) From Deep Dark to Daybreak. The night dies with your permission, your say-so. Things settled down some, early on. They all packed it in, left for bed. “Work in the morning,” was the excuse, was what they said. Me? I wanted more, always more. Called up five friends on the south-eastern end of town; my night carried on with them. We six twenty-somethings stood–wild-eyed, full-hearted, majestically inclined, severed, untethered, complicating matters for the upstanding–listening to each others’ tales as the freeway roared intermittently in the distance. The head on the spike talks fool’s gold. The toxic fumes of industry still loomed above, clogging the dreary nightsky: the pie-in-the-sky ponzi scheme. We sneered and batted away such grandiose notions–the shameless and breathy exhalations of the business world. We felt immune to its supposed appeal: the loopy, dopey-headed stupor which so regularly and ubiquitously doses the easily persuaded with promises of grandeur. We sat and smoked, joked and philosophized, savoring our separation from such things–drinking, drinking, drinking–and, before we knew what was what, the night sailed away from us . . . a filthy barge, bleakly glinting, motor sputtering, chugging down the Missus Sip.

(6:14 AM) Hard Times Café, Open Early. We looked to be the first wave of tattered misfits to place an order, our fingers skimming the cafe’s greasy menus–our hunger, almost palpable. The tattooed employees languidly accepted our penciled instructions, looking like they too were nursing the constant throbbing in their heads. While we six waited, we shot the shit at a round table of sorts. From time to time, we would catch each others’ eye and laugh for no good reason. Our names were shouted out, one by one. We then were fastened to our forks and knives, not saying a word, silently devouring our scrabbled eggs, sauteed veggies, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns–a fried oasis steaming enticingly atop each of our plates.

(7:12 AM) Satiated: the six of us poured into the street, hanging off each other like a barrel of haggard monkeys. The morning dew tickled the air and we felt the daylight swinging, like a spiked-club, for our jugular . . . wincing in the prepubescent sun, punch-drunk and hobbling along, the gin-sweat swamped across our foreheads, our hashbrowned-bellies heftily gargling, dopamine depleted, a few screws loose, cigaretteless, our voices hoarse, arms slung lifelessly at our sides, staggering back towards Riverside, back home, looking high up and feeling antlike below the pompous shine of ‘important’ monuments—those economically viable corporations, apathetically and exponentially perpetuating profit, capital.

(7:22 AM) Riverside. The sun’s sweltering crown rose steadily over the residential greenery: I saw that it was to be a dreadfully gorgeous Sunday, a day I would never really know for sure. The three of us who remained were strewn lazily about the front porch as if some giant toddler had been playing dress-up with us all evening and, favoring a billboard-sized juicebox instead, dropped us at the foot of her dollhouse . . . where we now sat splayed out and lifeless: our salty blood, hardly coursing through our veins; our breathing, labored; our livers, feeling beefy, robust with gunk. I was lying flat on my back, head hanging an inch shy from the second highest step, my squinted vision, flipped, turned upside down. Like so, I watched the world, and its inhabits, tremble forth.

(7:40 AM) Busybodies: the neighbors–having had their eight hours of rest–sauntered out into the street; some carelessly strolling about, heading to the park across the way; some biking to work; some jogging in spandex; some stopping, admiring the trees, the sounds, taking in the morning sun; some walking their dogs; some retrieving the Sunday paper from off their front stoops; some leaving for church; others tending to their garden tomatoes with ragged, dirty gloves. I watched the busybodies come and go. It felt as though these earlybirds were triggered, brought into being, activated for my amusement, and mine alone. From time to time, one of these unassuming busybodies would zip by the porch, by we disheveled three, and, upon seeing us, they’d avert their gaze, turn away, hardly looking us over . . . as if we twenty-somethings were a glaring and naughty nudity, off-limits to their disciplined world . . . as if we embodied a vulgar yet tempting indulgence, a tantalizing desire these adults put to bed, put to sleep all those years ago . . . in order to get ahead, comfortable. I looked up from my contemplative haze and realized that one of my friends was fast asleep, sitting up against the wall, his arms hugging his knees. My other pal was awake, lying on his side like a four-legged mammal shot to pieces–his smile, somewhat barred but smirking through his veiled, surfer-like hair. Just then, another busybody jogged past us, eyes forward, forward, forward. I remember laughing: to these people, we three must’ve appeared to be the spitting image of spent youth, youth incarnate. When the time came to bid my friends farewell, I swelled with a joyous appreciation for all things, the three departed and the two of them especially. This ballooning feeling was glad-handing sort of strange feeling: sorry and sad for those who hadn’t a clue, those who missed out on what we six shared, those who would always and forever water down our value. We were alive that night, that day. We were incomprehensibly alive.

(8:35 AM) Homeward Bound, Time for Bed. The short drive home dragged on like a never-ending lecture on the logistical hardships of the Franco-Prussian War. The sheer length of the night leeched me numb. But, behind the wheel, I felt happily crippled. I had pushed my body and my mind to its very limits; I had myself a lucid revolt against the physical. My house was finally in sight. I shot into my driveway, scrambled out of my car, turned the key to the house, hushed my always rowdy dog, suckled on a jug of ice-water, brushed my teeth, scrapped my grimy tongue, climbed the stairs, flopped on my bed like a sack of flesh, and I slept and I suffered oblivion for ten hours straight.

The older I get the older I get. That’s all there is to it. Sure, sure . . . I age, wrinkle and bald; my entire being unwillingly matures. I’m holding onto that which will inevitably escape me: unhindered youthfulness, an obsessive and reckless vigor for life, for being. So many of us come up short, give in. I feel like I have stood idly by all my life. I have watched the great majority of my contemporaries accept a prescribed fate. I have seen prophetic madmen succumb to the neutered sanity of circumstance. I have seen boundless potential, tremendous passion, wasted, treated unjustly by the best of them–miscarried, aborted, vacuumed out of them like an unwanted fetus. Me? Give me hell. I want to leave everything to chance. I’ll accept the charge, I’ll take the risk. I’ll wait for the stars to align, for the gods to show themselves, for anything that isn’t quite so very fucking certain. I know I’m nobody special. In the grand scheme of things, I’m nobody at all. But, if I must, I will: I will take a beating, a lashing, your punishment. I’m no messiah, but I’ll carry your water and I’ll drink your wine. I’ll be your poorly-timed, -phrased joke, your open can of writhing worms, your sneeze-guard, your blithering heart-ache, your welcoming-mat, your stepping-stone, your sacrificial scab, your sorry-sack-of-, good-for-nothing, do-little, scatter-brained, in-over-his-head, burnt-to-a-crisp Icarus. This is the sacrifice I’ve come to. This is what I am willing to do–for me, and for those who refuse to do it for themselves. My purpose, my path is decided. There’s no turning back. I’m resolved. This is what I am, who I am. Step aside, I have finally arrived. My name is M. J. Matthews. Who are you to say otherwise?

Until the next entry,

–M.J. Matthews



Copyright by M. J. Matthews 2012 . All rights reserved.