I hate picking categories for my blogs. Sometimes I sit here for like ten minutes and mull. I like sitting and mulling over things. Then I usually just drift away, drift away, drift away………
I’ve been wanting to write this for a few days. I think it might be important. There are just so many angles and I’m seeing things in my head like a great big kaleidoscope lately and Resces Peanut Butter Cups saved me. Ramble done. Substance begin.
Saving
I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said,
‘Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed’
-Joni Mitchell
When first heard these lyrics, it resonated with something deep down within me. I had a dream. Well a daydream of sorts. I was 14 years old. It was on my parents bed. I saw that man. I saw the man I was supposed to save. The features in his face were blurred. Then I knew. Then I knew.
The search was short. I thought I found that which had been conjured to me. This was only a faux pearl. This was something like heartache but I had no heart. No one was saved. I was left a wreckage. Nothing was broken. Nothing has no name.
I went off further into the abyss we call humanity. I saw glimpses of greatness. I saw far more horrors. I’ve seen many things that do not bear repeating. For their lack of importance, for their lack of any kind of depth. Only rings around a tree. Only rings around a giant redwood smothered around her kindren deep within the darkest forrest.
Then one day someone introduced a novel concept to me. That of saving myself. So I did. I had just seen Trainspotting again recently. So I left the life I knew, the people I knew stuck at a random motel. I thought I had stolen their drugs but in actuality I stole their Marlboro miles. I did not fret. I did not care. I never looked back. That life was gone.
Then I found something. I found myself. He was hiding where the willows never weep. On a tall cumulus cloud nestled in between the puffs.
When I was sitting home one night it occured. I had no idea what was happening. There was no immediate warmth or glow or feeling of glee or joy. I met the person I was supposed to save. There’s really no way of knowing you are going to save something until the process is already underway. It sweeps you up one night and then you wake up the next day with a hangover. You wonder what just occured. I thought this was love. This was nothing of the sort.
So I saved him.
Literally.
His life.
Not we had a little pep talk and he went out and threw three touchdown passes and the whole town of rednecks went into a frenzy.
Not I sprinkled my fairy dust all through the village and everyone thought he was a prince.
Not he was sad. We got drunk. We fucked. He felt acceptance but walked with a limp.
No. Physically preventing him from leaving this world. Tackling him with the noose in his hand.
It happened again. This time I offered him death. I offered him a chance to overdose on my bed. He chose not. Saved again.
Aftermath
I do not regret the choices I have made.
I stand by each and every one of them as my own.
Sometimes I wonder whether or not I saved the person I was supposed to save. It’s not really what I would call a regret. Just more mulling inside my own head.
There are times that make my decision feel right. There are times that make it cold and barren and desolate. An Antarctic tundra trapped by numbness between the webbing of my feet.
I do not search for what is to be saved.
I do not seek that which lies within.
I venture forth the crumbling highway.
I call for nothing yet something always begins.
By SpaceDog