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When the World Was Blown Open

Eyes black drops of ink, pupils blown out, wide bottomless pits, we lean too close. "I love you man," you tell me.  "I love you too, Dude," I say, but we don't say it enough, you know?"  And off we go, laughing and staggering down the beach.  The world has cracked wide open and the night is filled with false and fleeting magic, and it will wear off, this feeling of interconnectedness, to you and to the ocean and to the earth itself, it will wear off but even in the morning I will remember, and I will agree.  I love you too, man, but we don't say it enough.

And now thinking of those times, it feels distant, surreal memories of a different person, the lost and desperate acts of a broken young man, and maybe it was stupid and irresponsible, maybe we shortened our lives, and maybe in the end we will wish we had done things differently-

Maybe-

...or maybe not, maybe it was good, a life well lived, and when my liver fails, or my worn out blood throws a clot and I drop dead in some mall or stalled in traffic, maybe my last thought as I fade into the grey will be I love you man, and I wish I said it more, I wish you knew.

We can never say it enough.

I see you below, treading water, waiting for me to jump, calling me telling me to just do it already, just jump, and you are not there but I can feel you behind me, pushing me, saying just go, just step off, just do it.  I jump and my throat closes, chokes on fear and I cannot even yell out as the water rushes up to meet me, and I love you, but maybe I hate you just a little for making me do this.

We are bound together, you and I, through love, through duty, bound by scars, both real and imagined.

Bound by blood, both real and imagined.

We used to fight, and you would win, bloody my lip sometimes or catch me with an unanticipated fist in the ribs, we played games and I would get the wind knocked out of me, leaving me gasping on the grass like a dying fish. You used to make me cry.

And it was you who first gave me all my worst behaviors who always told me to just jump, stop being such a pussy.  It was you who said here try this- it will be great, trust me. And I did.  

I always trusted you.

I failed you so much, shied away from helping, didn't speak up, and my head is filled with incidents, times when you would have stepped in if I needed you, and when you needed me and I failed.  I've got a list of regrets, examples of my stupid cowardice of my bullshit.  You would have helped, you would have not made it worse.  But I didn't, and I did.

There were flowers on the street, when the world was busted wide open, I remember making up a story about them, about lost love, and I spoke about it, but nobody was interested, nobody was listening.  We watched the ocean grow light after staying up all night, and the sand was wet and cold and it was time to go home.  Reality creeps in and we find that our connections to the world, to the earth to the ocean, to each other, grow more tenuous, and then evaporate altogether and we find ourselves shivering on a beach at six in the morning blinking and trying to hold on to the magic, and the world looks flat, surreal, grey and hostile.  I want to hold on to it, to that fleeting evaporating magic, that false shine, that feeling that the world could be so good, if only we cared about each other, but we can't live here, we can't always tell each other that we love each other, even if its true.

We do, though, we love each other as only brothers can.

We just don't say it enough. 

Still writing

RP
6-6-18




Huh.  A little artsy I guess. So be it. Comment here, if you want, email me at dissent.within at gmail.com.  Lately I have been a little active on Twitter, so follow me there @RDPullins if you like dumb jokes.  I have a Facebook, but I am never on there, so if you are sending me messages there, I'm not seeing them.  Try to be kind, folks, it ain't that hard.   


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