This Is An Exercise In Words – ReubenRock.com

I dreamed of a boat. A small vessel. Simply a sail and enough space for two friends to venture out into the bay. We were surrounded by vacationers, and there was some sort of tour guide within earshot but never within my line of sight. Maybe you saw him, but I wouldn’t know. Or would I? They say we are every character in our dreams. I suppose then that you were just a projection of me. Some part of my being. What I can say, and what I know for sure, is that we have been friends a long time. And sailing with you atop such a tiny hull through crowded waters would be fine by me.

What did we see out there? I remember there was a barrier that came down from the sky, blocking us from entering the greater ocean landscape. There were other boats, rowboats and sailing ships alike.

I guess we found what we were looking for, because eventually we turned back to the docks.

Stepping off our deck and toward the mainland, which was scattered with rental homes, we came across a dog. He lounged comfortably, and his skin folded onto itself. His eyes were lazy. And we complimented his owner (the tour guide) on owning such an impressive beast.

But our journey didn’t end there. As we made our way back to the small, wooden structure we had apparently been calling home for the week, you asked for my expertise on a matter. “I’m going to make a trade with a man. You are the only person I know and trust to advise me in this way. How should I fold these dollar bills? And where should I store my goods?”

I must have sighed heavily. Part of me felt ashamed that I was keeper of such knowledge. But I offered this technique out of love for my friend. “Fold your bills this way. Hand them to the man discretely. And bring me your package. I’ll put it somewhere safe for you.”

Perhaps we should have stayed at sea where our two souls were innocent, because suddenly you were gone into the sunny streets to do shady deals.

A snapshot. Captured. Polaroids of the paranoid. Red eye removal is as futile as hiding the habit. This is how the kids chose to live their lives. Like the dead. Every folded bill worth its weight in gold. Every surface a workspace. Each single ply square a vessel. “Take us deeper” and “bring us closer.”

If we swallow our whole existence, can we be reborn as something stronger? With morals less malleable?

This has been a graphic depiction of things you had only read about in brief passages by depraved men banging away at typewriters in hotel rooms. It’s a high definition, panoramic, surround sound photo of a life you didn’t think was yours.

Winter is coming. Let’s stock the shelves with something to sustain us. Or light fire to piles of mail stacked on the table and stuffed away where I won’t read it. Where it can feed my anxiety without even being in sight. Put that energy to use and warm this house.

Let’s neglect the laundry for weeks. The scent of us has grown so near and dear. It would almost be a crime to wash it away and trade out the soul of these sheets for the smell of fresh linens.

Step into the yard. Feel the air cooling by the minute. Let’s pile leaves high in the corners of this lot, then toss our summer clothes in to decompose and leave space for a season of sweaters and pea coats. Something to hug our frail bodies when nobody else will.

We can pull the clouds over this city. Block out the sun for months. Watch our skin go pale as our life bleeds out like the colors of Fall. Let the rain come and carry us along the streets. Watch the gray skies scrolling above us. Race for the gutters and drown.

Afterwards, we’ll hang our damp socks to dry. Lock the doors and break open the bottles that give us courage to believe there will be another year.

Winter is coming.

This is a metaphor for you. Too difficult to break down. Just won’t cut the way you want. Too damp and heavy to be lifted up from the cool surfaces staring at white ceilings in these empty three bedrooms and two baths.

What’s left? Just the frustration and the futility of it all. Slice, crush, rake. Like the most anxiety-ridden zen garden in this city.

Caked onto faces of dead white men. The kind of historic slap in the mouth you would have singled out and expounded upon… would have inspired a diatribe from thin lips barely holding back the education that’s getting caught in between your tiny teeth on the way to half deaf ears.

It grows pregnant, drops. Stuck in that groove until the mind simply cannot race another mile.

this bed is cold.

It’s odd to watch my body age. To see my hands grow worn like leather. They look more and more like the father’s hands each day. Years from now, will a young boy ponder my story while he traces the lines around these knuckles? Will he daydream about the decades when I was a youth? Will he look at himself and see me, while I look at him and see the grandfather he’ll never know?

We’re so alike now. In all the ways you wanted me to be different, I’m the same.

I should have known my sins felt too familiar to be a coincidence.

Embrace them.

The best we can hope for is to walk a few steps further than our creators did. To take in a few more cool breaths. I’m thankful for that chance, if nothing else. But what good does giving thanks do for the faithless?

I’m smiling and grinding teeth. I’m speaking in my sleep to a captive audience. Do you hear the words I’m stuttering and slurring? I may exist in constant reverie, but these aren’t just fanciful artifacts from a past where I was king. They’re plans. Bolder than I can imagine and larger than I can wrap my head around.

It spills out through dilated pupils on weekend nights. The town folk lap it up like an elixir for the ills of suburban life. A shortcut away from mediocrity and into… what?

Take a second while I sink this into your core – I’m magnetic. I can captivate and carry the crowd for some time. Force them to invest in my story. Convince them that they play an integral part in this meteoric rise to the upper middle class. Like they’ll be right there with me. That’s the beauty of what I do. I am the only drug here.

When the sun is rising, when the party is winding down, while we’re struggling to decide what’s next… I can rest easy. My path seems predetermined: white collar, disposable income. You can’t even figure out to do with your hands.

It seems like all the anniversaries and birthdays stack up in those same 30 days each year. Makes it difficult to last 24 hours without the mind drifting backwards through the years. Reliving loves and pains and plans we made.

But what’s life without history? We need to look back in order to understand what’s coming and why. Revisiting a memory is like seeing an old friend. And he tells you, “Remember when we let go of the wheel? Pressed the accelerator through the floorboard? Turned up the music, rolled down the windows, and unbuckled our seat belts? That’s how we got here today. Thrown clear of the crumpled machinery. Scraped and bruised on the edge of this scenic highway and staring off toward the horizon. There were dreams up ahead. But we were reckless. And now we have to walk the rest of this journey.”

I’ve been criticized for living in the past. Well, I was alive in those days. I struggle to see how I should be any more alive in this moment.

So if you catch me looking at old photographs or reading the same weathered novel, please try to understand – I’m only reminding myself what it means to feel vital. To have a pulse.

There are poisons in this town far worse than those I lean on today. They have eyes and ears to perceive your weaknesses. Mouths that spit savage syllables into the open air of this city. Hands that scratch and claw at your coat tails as you flee the damp alleys and smokey back rooms. They cling to your life because they have none of their own. And you’ll fall to your knees before you realize what’s taken hold.

I knew such a poison. Occasionally, I can still taste her name in the stale breath that booze hounds come to know.

In the interest of circumventing the obvious bear trap in the public park, I’ll choose a different route. A detour, if you will. Where she calls but gets no response. She seeks but does not find. Let the poor have her. She finds satisfaction in being groped on crowded sidewalks.

I’ve said it before and defended it arrogantly – some people are simply more fit for this world. We succeed where others cannot. It’s a sort of capitalism, and I won’t carry the dregs of society. Not on my time. Not on my dollar. Harlots are not an investment.

It’s a strange love. The kind that slips into your bed in the dark. Thought the alarm was watching you in the night. The dog would bark. Sheets would hold you tight.

Then she’s there. Wrapped in your arms each morning like she belonged in them. A robber looking for more than a meal card. She has her own ground to stand on. So what is she looking for in you?

Only god knows. And what does that even mean? Logically – nothing.

Just expect the company. Enjoy the embrace. Swallow sins each weekend. Never detox or come down.

Tonight I’ll have withdrawals. Shakes. Shivers. Fresh linens. They don’t smell like us. But I’ll bet Friday comes like wildfire. And I can’t wait to burn.