Pickles

"Don't remind me of my failures, I have not forgotten them." (Jackson Browne)

The remembered walls of my life are filled with pictures of love lines, of red fires and dark blues. I am surrounded thus, and that is fine with me. I do want to fold within the high times of love; but intruding crying scenes; the ruining
rains upon lights, ending greys, do invade.

Someone criticized the Brokenman for speaking so honestly of his love times. Yet, sharing of the private kind is the meat of the Stickman site. There may be commentaries, but they precede upon those of us who try to give our personal perception
of truth. The personal story is the draw. And the deepest prints read of conflict and pain, and, of course, occasional heavens, such as the curl of bodies- hers beautiful, ours always inferior, the variant only of degrees.

Most of the writings on Stickman describe beginnings where first there is the feel of lust and holding and the possibility of continuance: but then there are the complications and discontent, and finally, there is close and duress. But if
the painting is not this way colored, the need to keep reading suffers. If the tale is all happiness, there is blandness. Without drama, which requires conflict, there is no literature, no compelling entries here. And one relating to another depends
on belief in the writer's truth. Dana's best writings, for me, are of his own biography. I follow him intently on his own strokes of self adventures, but stray when his fantasies leave the solid earth. We all pose here as heroes, but
really we do not describe mirrors, but open windows.

My deepest descent started with E. rehearsing leaving me by going away for the whole night after a fight and not returning until the next day. I would stay fixed by the window waiting for her return. Finally, there was a last leave, with
her not coming back. I drank half the McCallans single malt until I passed out. In the middle of night I awoke and vomited and went to the comfort room to wash myself clean. But I couldn't sleep. I went back to my new baby, the bottle, and
took of her some more, and fell again into sleep. On morning I smelled of her effects. I showered and though my head throbbed from headache I felt cleaner. But the house was so empty, and the quiet; the silence was so loud I could not stand the
lack of sound. I went to some rum on the counter and took of her. It seemed to stop the hurt.

Days and nights thus. I wasted the good stuff because after the first drinks I tasted the stupor only.

I did have an interview concerning my work and on this morning I stopped drinking. Shaved. Dressed. Went out into the streets thinking I really wanted this work. (Okay, thinking I needed this work.) I was met at the building by my business
associate who had got me the interview. He approached me and his look on his face was not pleased. He took me into a room and told me bluntly I smelled of liquor and that to go ahead with the interview would be suicide for future work. Word would
get out. I had not drunk that morning but found that the pores of one's body could leak toxins, which did indeed smell.

I wandered the house for weeks. I watched with a strange curiosity how far I would fall and degrade myself. I thought of the phrase: "Been down so long everything seems up to me."

But I was seeing no up, only the dirty floors of my down. I would let the phone ring and ring. My friends and family left messages, but they were not from her, the longed for voice, and so I did not answer. My friend Jake knocked many times
on my door but I would only yell for him to go away.

I did not clean. I had no appetite. I did have crackers sometimes with my drinking.

I was suffering yet somehow did not want it to stop.

After the fall one hopes for redemption. The way back to love: Is that not the common thread here? The Stickman site is the stuff of yearnings and hopes for the promised land.

One often goes into bars not for the liquors but for the needs for female form, and touch, in the Land of Smiles.

I remember my first kiss at thirteen on a beach with 16 year old blond and thin and beautiful Patricia Wilding of Shrewsbury, England: her lips touching mine and feeling their soft skinned texture thrilled my breathing and blood and I was
heated and felt its flow thicken me. I was in rapture and no kiss since has boiled me so.

About the descent I describe earlier: It would be nicer to say I have recovered in the years since. But the hole shall probably never be completely healed over. And there were many women after. My looks stayed and drew them in: but no one
set me back to rapture until one day a small Asian princess came my way.

I feel the slight weight of her back as I drift into sleep and the relief of sleep and rem.

Morning comes and I first smell a sweetness from her and then cover her with myself and enfold her until we are one picture.