addiction

the image is burned into my very core,

every where I look I see it

when people talk I think of it

when I'm alone i long for it,

I play with fantasy of it during the day

intelligence is no match for the emotion

the computer screen shows it to me,

and blurs the spreadsheet that I am working on.

then for a moment, brief though it is, I get relief

I can think again, I can see the bright blue skies

I feel the loving hug from my family

and I feel regret and guilt

and it starts to come into view,

I try not to look at it

and I feel frustration and fear

and waves of hopelessness pound me

and it starts to call my name

and I try not to hear it

and I try to remember the love of my family

and I try to remember the happy times without it

but again everywhere I look I see it

there are no words to explain it

its image is burned into my core.

I need to do this lady

"I am getting to drunk to drive home, can you help?" says the lady sitting next to me at the bar.
A slightly classy joint, where they have replaced live musicians with a mellow sound system that has a great mix of mellow jazz, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Tony Bennett.

Looking for small talk, she sees on the TV above the bar, a show about golf lessons and asks me "What are they doing?" as she scoots a little closer to me.

I reply "it is a golf lesson, and yes he is really hitting the ball, but it goes into a net, and a giant projection screen makes it look like he is on an actual golf course"

She makes a joke that is funny only to her, and gently touches my leg.

We make small talk, and she is looking at me intently, and twirling her hair with her fingers. She rocks and laughs and touches me again, and again, and again.

In conversation I can see that she is truly one of those stupid, inexperienced people that has used her firm smooth body, cleavage, and perfect lips to get what she needs in life.

Some more TV watching, comments on music, and small-talk about movies. Some time passes and she makes the statement again "I am getting to drunk to drive myself home"

I look and see no evidence of a wedding ring, even when you take one off there is a tell-tale indentation or a subconscious touching of what is no longer there.

During the minutes that pass I see she is not drinking that much, well not drinking as much as a person "to drunk to drive" would drink. The conversation goes to the deal she got two meals for the price of one, and tells me she is between jobs.

Seems to me asking a stranger to drive you home is an invite to have one night of shallow intimacy.

So wanting to keep conversation going I ask her "What brings you to this restaurant's bar in this part of the city tonight?"

She said "She had dropped her son off at the gym around the corner, and while he is working out she decided to come here." Which totally contradicted all of the signals I had been reading. One night stands and children don't go together.

I feigning interest asked "Oh and how old is he?"

She answered "He just turned 18 yesterday, yeah he is not my little boy any more."

With that she ordered another glass of white house wine, and while sipping looked straight ahead at the meaninglessness of all the alcohol bottles lined up so perfectly in front of the huge mirror.

As I looked at her beauty, my eyes gravitated toward her face as she sipped her wine, and saw her as her, not as one night of meaningless intimacy.

She is lonely, and so desperately wants someone in her life.

Her little boy is turning into an independent man, and will be leaving her soon. She has nothing left in her life, no career to push out the lonely feelings, no person to come home to, no one to be home for.

She feels a loneliness so deep, so debilitating.

Not knowing which way to turn, she tries what worked almost 19 years ago.

Silence

he always wanted more out of life than his parents could offer him.

so as a teen he stayed in shape strong, flexible, no extra fat

he needed to be prepared for his future

although he did not know what that would be.

high school years were normal, well normal for high school

experimenting with different people

looking for different highs

trying to avoid his parents

he really liked movies and saw where money could fall from the sky

he was a mediocre actor

but took drama all years of high school

and was even in a few plays

once he had the lead role,

he liked the attention that gave him,

he liked pretending to be something he knew inside he was not.

he acted the leading man

strong

secure

a person that liked, loved and respected himself.

but he was none of those things

he was young and strong and fit

a beauty, handsome

anyone seeing him would think so,

a swimmers physique, is how one described him, although he did not go into sports.

lost at 18

high school over

parents divorced

no money

no prospects

he thought about how to get out of the place he was in

bouncing from parent to parent as they tired of his moods

he really liked acting, but the one thing his parents Could agree upon, was that he could never make it into the movies. He would scream back how wrong they were, that he would make it big and they would be sorry for trying to crush his future.

he stopped talking to both of them and moved out of their little town to find success

he tried,

auditioned

pleaded

practiced

and found nothing,

and then one night while he was trolling the internet for escape

he realized exactly what he should do

he saw a small movie company in his area and he applied,

his good looks and youth were all they needed.

for very little they paid him a lot

so he went back

they asked him for more and he gave it uneasily but they paid him very well

so he went back

having pushed him this far they pushed him the rest of the way too his future

a future of acting

a future of lots of money

and it was his dad that stumbled on to one of his movies,

who then told his ex-wife his acting was not all that good, not bad, but not great

but he was very beautiful on the screen

and she said well did you bring the movie with you, I only get an occasional "I'm alive mom" he didn't tell me he was in a movie.

and the father said, " I don't think you will want to see this one, I know I did not"

and she said "well no matter how bad it is, its still our son, we should be proud"

and the father sat there looking at his ex-wife thinking of their little boy, and the childhood, the messy divorce, the infidelity,

and after a long silence the man had the look of extreme sorry, and shame

and inhaled deeply

and exhaled long and slow

and the father said "our son is the star of a gay porno..."