Hello and welcome to my blog. I am John Loraine and I am a poet and a writer. Check out my new book, a collection of short stories and poems “Nicetown”. Thank you for reading. Cheers!
I get up at six every morning, rain or shine Not because I want to but because I have to. The world is still sleeping, and it is still dark in the room, And it is difficult to open my eyes, tired from the night’s sleep. I turn off the alarm and lay there with my eyes shut. Just one more minute, please God, just another minute. That last minute in bed is the shortest in my day, But it is the time I enjoy the most. Five days a week is the definition of a work day. I go to the bathroom, pee, and brush my teeth. The shower is next, and I wait patiently until the Water is warms up enough to get under it and soak in it Like a flower on the driest day. I am rinsing the fatigue and the sleep of me The new day has come. I get out and get dressed; the kitchen stop next.
I brew my morning coffee next and walk outside to warm my car. The engine roars with pain from the overnight hangover Spitting out the clouds of fumes out of the exhaust and into the Fresh morning air. I sigh with relief as the twenty-years-old engine is still alive And the car will take me to the place which feeds me. I grab my stuff and walk out of the house, locking the door, As my family is still sleeping upstairs. With a mug of coffee in one hand and a laptop case in another, I am ready for the day, whatever it brings. Rolling out of the neighborhood while most of the neighbors Are still at home, I listen to the latest morning news: The state of the economy, the stock market forecast, And the futures are down, and so am I As the inflation is rising, as is my blood pressure, The rate cuts are still far away, and the new IPOs are waiting. The politics is still in deep shit, but this is how it’s always been. Radio keeps me company along my way And in about one hour and fifteen minutes, I will be clocking in at work.
I see those people in their cars, sitting there in traffic, Trying to get somewhere this morning. I don’t see too many happy faces. Why would I? We all are on our way to the places we hate, but this is how life works. This is why we work all the time, even while sitting in traffic over the bridge, We think about the day’s work, and there is nothing good to look forward to.
The office sounds busy, with all those people arriving at work, Some people are chatty, laughing and smiling, and some are just The ghosts of themselves. They know they have to be here, But there is no desire, no inspiration, no life in it. Some days at work are quiet, and I like it that way, Some are busy and not my favorite, but still For the next eight hours, I have to be here. I have to serve. The next thing I know is the lunch hour. The best time during the workday, any day. The lunch room is packed as all of them are here to eat And chat, and laugh and talk business, or whatever. I am hungry too, but I’d prefer a quiet place with nobody around. I eat my painful meal and watch all those people around me, They, just like myself, have no other choice. The afternoon hours are the longest, as always. No matter what you do or don’t do, the time is moving too slowly. At five, I pack without even thinking about any unfinished work As I know, it will still be here tomorrow, waiting for me To get done, to get finished. But I am finished with it now. I am done for the day. The parking lot looks like the fire drill in action, With all those cars lined up at the gates waiting to get out. Nobody wants to stay here any longer, and neither do I. I join the evening traffic miserably, just like all of them, to get back home. The home, that sacred place you spend your life to maintain and finance, And yet you spend the least amount of time there. I see the angst in those faces driving right beside me. They always look like they’ve had enough. They’re tired, confused, desperate, and lifeless. Something has been eating their souls all day long And they are free from all of that, as least until tomorrow.
I get back home one and a half hours later And everything seems a bit better now. I open the doors, and the kid runs towards me smiling, He wants to play with me right away. I look around the house as everything is a mess with all those toys are scattered all around. I know I’ll have to clean it up later; nobody else will do it. My seven-month-pregnant wife is on the couch; she’s tired. She was tired of being tired, and the weight of The new child inside her tired her down. We eat dinner together with some small talk, The kid is getting anxious and wants to watch TV. I am exhausted, but I finish my plate, and we play. We play for the next two hours or so, and then we take a bath and Then he goes to sleep with his mother, just like he’s used to. I stay a while to clean up all the mess in the dishes and remove the trash. I pay my bills, check my emails, and prepare for another day. I go to bed with a book in my hands, and I sleep for the next five hours Like they are everything I have. The man is down, and it’s time to check out for the day. Tomorrow will be yet another one, and so it goes, and so it goes Until we are alive, the battle continues, and so it does.
I don’t know why I cry in my sleep I don’t know why, but I do. I don’t know why I cry in my sleep Something must be given away Something must be crying for help Something deep inside, hidden under the Layers and layers of bullshit, Something that I’ve hidden so well all these years. Something that only escapes when I can’t. And I’m stuck, feeling trapped in this darkness And misery, and shit. I don’t know why I cry when I sleep It could be just a dream, I guess. It could be that I just can’t pretend anymore As I am sleeping, dropping my guard, Laying there unguarded and naked and free, Waiting for the morning to come and for The new day to begin, to start anew. I wish I could start this life from scratch, But years went by like this, and so many things I cannot get back anymore, They’re lost in the holes of history, There are no returns. Maybe I’ll just let it go for a while, Let the misery leave me as these tears Rolling down my face, wetting my pillow, Waking me up, sobering me up, Getting myself ready, making myself Understand. I think I like it like that, Let it go, let it go. It’s going to be just fine.
It’s 1 am in the morning or at night, As I sit here on my backyard patio Smoking my cigarettes, thinking my thoughts. And the wind picks up and rolls the dead leaves on the ground Letting me know that the summer was over. It is over, man. All over. As the cigarette burns and the trees shake off the dead leaves And I sit here and wonder, Getting more drunker and older and cold. I am on my seventh beer, and the night is still young. But sadly, I am not young anymore, as I age by the minute Rolling through my life like the dry yellow leaves blown by the wind, Out of my mind and out of my youth. I am not getting younger, but I always wanted to be strong, To be a true man, gentleman, to be an independent person. But I am so weak as I still depend on so many things Like those cigarettes, like that beer, like that night, Like those leaves and the trees in my backyard. The air is getting colder, and the wind blows harder, And I know I have to get back inside. I have to get back to the house, To my family, to my bed, to my life. It is Friday night in Pennsylvania, And all I have is another six hours of sleep And another six-pack of beer, and there’s Another three cigarettes left in the pack To keep me going through the night like a renegade, Like a monster, like a lost soul. And just like that, another new poem came to be. A fresh new poem after a while. And I am happy to have you again. It’s been a long time, my friend, It’s been a long life.
Unwanted, unneeded, unfit, rejected. Society is still out there, doing its thing But you are not part of it anymore, any longer. You used to be there, and you had that spark in your eyes But the tides have shifted, and now You’re drowning in the darkness of the muddy waters, Eating shit with shellfish, and seaweed, and sadness. Sitting all alone in the darkness, chainsmoking And pouring more wine in your glass bought on credit, You’ve seen the better days, some days before. Now, all you can see is the misery and despair. There is a cold spring wind blowing in the night The cigarette is feeling cold, too. There is no job tomorrow and nowhere to go, There is just more of this emptiness and cigarette smoke. You’ve had your success, and you’ve been down before, But each time, it feels like it’s the worst one yet. This fucking life always goes up and down And you have to learn to play this game sometime. People meant to live, and people meant to die, People meant to suffer, and people meant to survive. I am fighting hard, but my fighting with myself, Killing my shadow in the uneven match. The moon is up high, and there are planes in the sky Going somewhere. The stars are all there and have no other business but shine. You were the star once, and you’ve shone bright and high, But even the stars do go down once in a while. And you went down to the lowest of the low, The lowest you’ve ever been, with all that success in the past. There will be tomorrow and some more days in your life You’ll figure out living as you’re learning to die.
( This piece has no literary value. From the late-night beer-infused Saturday night rant series)
The cold beer feels great going down my throat. I actually feel fucking great. I fucking love my beer. I fucking love to just sit back, play some music, drink my beer, knowing that there is nothing else I have to or want to do. There is a vinyl record spinning on the turntable. I realized that I hadn’t used the turntable in a while. What a shame. I have over two hundred records collecting dust, but I am not doing shit about it. I know I have them. I know where they are. I realize what a bunch of great fucking record collections I have, but I’m just too busy dealing with life to enjoy that music. I just keep forgetting to get back to it, to enjoy it a little bit. There are records that I acquired years ago, and I still remember where I bought them and sometimes even how much I paid for them. Certain memories stay with you forever. They might not always be the most important memories, but there is something special about them, so I still have some recollection of the time and space, my life then, my experiences, and my thoughts… Music is one of the greatest things in life. It can be both tangible and intangible. You can just sing the song out loud, and it would make you feel happy. But also, you can have a 180 mg vinyl playing on the turntable, which would bring the greatest joy and satisfaction. I am not a hoarder, but I do love collecting certain things. I love to have them, to see them, to touch them, to smell them. I am a young fella, but I do love the old shit. The old music makes me feel great. The black and white movies make me happy as well. It seems like back in the old days of black and white TV, or when music was pressed on vinyl, life was so much fucking better. It seems like life back then was more fun, it was more real, and authentic, and you could feel and smell things and get a great sense of the past life. I get some sort of weird nostalgia while experiencing the old things, the old school, the old way. I think that even cigarettes were a hundred times better for you back then. Somehow, the more we advance as a civilization, the deeper we get into the nowhere. Somehow the things are so fucking dull and tasteless and surreal that I don’t even what to be part of any of it. Fuck it all. I want to be real. I want the real shit. I want good wine or beer, a good piece of meat, a good cigarette, and fresh morning air filling my lungs. I want the smell of a freshly printed paperback. Nothing smells better than a fresh, brand-new paperback or a cup of great, freshly brewed coffee. I mean, how much do you really need to be happy? If you really think about it, it is not that much. The little things always make the man feel alive, feel like a man, and that life is worth something. These are the nights in white satin, and there is so much about the nights, and satin, and music, and beer, and life, and cigarette burning in your hand while you sit back and let go. Just go on. Let me take a little breather. Let me take a little break from all the fucking madness, for fuck’s sake. Do I have to be present, worried, and responsible for everything? Sometimes, I feel like I can move mountains. But sometimes, the opposite is true. Sometimes, I just want to fuck off. I want to sit on my sofa in my basement, endlessly drinking my beer while listening to music and writing down all my nonsense. One day, I decided I wanted to be a writer. And I became one. I don’t write all that much, but I have written a lot. I am trying to be to stay productive. Before, it felt like a foreign concept. It felt like a dream. And then, some days later, I made that dream come true. I made that dream come to life, giving me something to live for and strive for. It usually takes me a lot of time to come around, but when I do, I am on it. I love watching myself becoming a new me. The old me was a dick, a confused nobody, a lowlife, a useless fuck. Once I overcame that mental roadblock and explored new territories, things started to move, to come about, and things started to happen. Good shit started to happen. And I couldn’t be more happy with that. I couldn’t be more happy with myself. And I couldn’t be happier seeing myself producing the words through poems and the short stories that eventually became books years later. Fuck. I fucking made it. I fucking made it happen. I became a true writer. Something that was just a dream and some sort of delusional obsession had become my new reality. I am a writer with two self-published books, and the third one is in the closing stages. I am doing something. I am being productive, maybe not as productive as I could’ve been, but slowly and surely, shit is happening. And now, looking back, I don’t feel bad at all. I feel satisfied. I feel like I made my dream a reality. I am a writer. Even though no fans are knocking at my door. Even though there are no sales and book lists. Even though there are no book deals, I still outperformed my old self from those early desperate years, and I have some proof to show for it. But mainly, I proved to myself that the dream is possible. A simple dream is possible for anyone, even losers, as I have been for most of my life. Dream your dreams, my friend, and go after them. It will open a new world for you worth something. It is definitely much better than sitting on your ass doing nothing at all, waiting for death to come and take you away, or waiting for the next day, just hopelessly hoping it would bring anything better. I waited a fair amount of time in my life this far. I have no fucking patience no more. I want it all, and I want it now. I have no time to waste. I have no time to lose. The only fucking thing I do have besides my sorry-ass is the time, and I am on that fucker all the time. I hate to waste time. I hate to lose it. I hate somebody else taking and wasting my fucking time. I guess there is a reason why I own ten watches. I do fucking have a deep appreciation for the time and watchmaking, indeed. I cherish every minute that goes by, goes sideways, into infinity as I get older and wiser or dumber, or whatever. Time is a fascinating thing. It comes through you and leaves scars on your soul and face in the form of sadness, anxiety, deep wrinkles, gray hair, and bad eyesight. Time is all we have…
Silver Mercedes-Benz E-class pulled out of the parking space and slowly rolled out of the huge rectangular parking lot towards the gates on the west side of the corporate building. The twenty-year-old car was well polished, with clean, shiny rims and tires, and with original light-blue window tint, and it never looked true to its age. Behind the wheel was a man in his mid-thirties with a mid-size black beard and dark aviator shades. The man was dressed in a nice, white-crisp dress shirt, black jeans, and black dress shoes. His name was John Brahmovski. He was exiting the company’s parking lot and heading home. It was time. It was five minutes past five o’clock.
One after another, cars pulled out of the parking lot, exiting the premises. The working day was over. Now, people were living on their own time, at their own expense, heading home thinking about the rest of the day, their homes, families, bills to pay, dinner to eat, friends to visit, kids to take care of, or just get home and binge-watch something on TV. This is our modern life, and we are all part of it in one way or another, and there are many ways to live it. We all have our choices, and we all make our choices. As long as we all have a job, we are good. There was at least one less thing to worry about on those warm, sunny, late-summer evenings.
The man in his mid-thirties pulled closer to the gates and waited for them to open. The motion sensors on the black metal gates triggered and pulled to the left, letting cars exit the parking lot. The man hit the right turn signal and joined the early evening post-work traffic. Inside the car, loud rock music was playing from the CD through the half-open window, and the man searched around with his right hand for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He hasn’t smoked all day. He was dying for a cigarette. This has been his first day on the new job. This might as well be the first day of his new life. Just yesterday, he’s been unemployed or unemployable, as he often joked about himself, and now he was back in business.
The new job was with a respected car company, and the pay was decent. His new team seemed like a bunch of good people from first sight, and the first day overall went pretty damn smoothly. There was nothing to worry about. It was time to relax, take it easy, and enjoy the ride while it lasted. He knew damn well that there was no security with any jobs anywhere anymore. There was no hope for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. There is only one hope to make it home to see your family, have dinner with them, have a glass or two of red wine, and smoke a cigarette before going to bed, forgetting about the day passing. As he joined the traffic, he lit his cigarette and exhaled a huge cloud of smoke through his window and into the evening traffic. It felt liberating. It felt really good. Smoking is never fucking good for nobody, but also are so many other things that make a man feel great. Somehow, the only healthy things are the ones nobody wants to do or consume. Paradox. There was always this side and the other side. He was too young to think about the other side yet. Life has just begun. Fuck it all. Live and let live, man. Just keep it simple and keep it rolling until the wheels come off.
Mercedes was rolling on the highway, switching lanes frequently, depending on the traffic. He was an experienced driver. He saw, reacted, acted, and made his moves smoothly, feeling the traffic, reading the road and the lanes, and feeling for those who didn’t know how to drive in that evening madness. He exhaled the thick white cigarette smoke up in the air as the music blasted on the car speakers. Cigarette, music, speed, new job; he had plenty of reasons to be excited. Life wasn’t fair to him for a while, and it almost felt strange to see it change in such a new and much better direction. Why not be happy for once? Sometimes the sun shines through the rain, motherfucker, he recalled the quote from an old classic rock song. Here comes the sun over my head, he thought, driving seventy miles per hour with his front window half open and the five o’clock sun warming his face from the West.
At home, his wife and their three-year-old son were waiting for him. He was excited to see them again after a long day at work. They’ve been inseparable for a long time, and now daddy has a new job. John was unemployed for the last five months as it was a pain in the ass to land a new gig. The prior job fired him based on poor performance. John disagreed with that conclusion as he always worked his ass off working long and late hours to get the job done. No attempts of his to make it all work were appreciated. He got no support on that job, only criticism. Fuck ‘em all, he thought. He actually thought about that firing a lot over the months that passed. He knew those fucks hated him, and he grew up to hate them back. Feelings were mutual, and the firing wasn’t a surprise to nobody at the end of the day. He had no choice. He accepted that, knowing that he was used and betrayed. Yet another corporate bullshit he had stumbled upon. That kind of shit just never ends. The saddest thing was that he was his family’s primary and only breadwinner, and they enjoyed living off his six-figure salary for the last two years. There was never a concern about grocery shopping, buying things, month-long vacations in Florida, going out to dinners, or meeting friends, and countless evenings around the family dinner table with light jazz music, a nice meal, and a top-shelf bottle of nice red wine. It all ended in one day, and they had to readjust to a new, humble, conservative life. As time went by and the countless job searches led nowhere, his shit was out of luck. He thought about his future and his family’s future more than ever.
John wrote in his journal about the day he received Food Stamps.
“I checked my mail late in the evening after taking out my trash, and the Food Stamps card came in the mail. Inside, opened the letter, and there it was. The help from the government to me because I have fallen so low in life. I looked at it, and within seconds, I felt both sadness and embarrassment, as I had not felt for a very long time. There was more embarrassment than anything else that I felt at that moment, and I feel the same fucking embarrassment right now thinking about that Food Stamps card that has been untouched on my island table since it came yesterday. It needs activation. I need re-activation in my life as never before. I came from a six-figure salary down to this, a Food Stamps card, and two-and-a-half-month delayed unemployment compensation, which I also received earlier this week. I had to cash out my 401K plan savings from my old job a few weeks ago, losing around 4K in that transaction. And that is my life now. I never worried about saving money or spending while I had a job. Now, I have nothing, and nothing is even close to a potential future opportunity. I have fucking hit the rock bottom yet again. How did I get here? Where did I make the wrong move? I always thought I was following the rules and doing the right thing. I have signed up to do the right thing since my early days. Now, this right thing is no longer required, needed, or helped me in any way.”
Interstate 95 was busy that evening, and John navigated the traffic as well as he could. He was not in a rush. The rush was over for him. He enjoyed this great new feeling that overwhelmed him. That was the feeling of new beginnings. The feeling of hope, new life, and a new chance, a new journey. He felt worthless so much and so often that knowing that there was a job now that needed you and paid you well, and you could be great at it, and you could build your fucking career, as a result, was a great feeling. Also, he was mainly happy because he could provide for his family again, just like in the good old days. Over the last five months, we felt like shit often. His hands were tight, nobody needed him at the job, and there were no decent jobs to get into. All he had was his loving family, his balls, and his persistence. Sometimes, there are no other options but waiting. Wating is a killer of the soul. He’s been waiting forever. There was always something else dragging him down, staying in his way, other people who were just shitty fake people he had to deal with. There was always too little or too much of everything happening at the same time. There were a lot of great moments, but there was very little to no time to enjoy them because of this or that; mainly, there was too much job bullshit in his world, and he had to make it work somehow in the name of providing a great life for his family. He would do anything for his family.
“I do feel sad somehow. I do feel sad and useless that I am unemployed. I know that having a job at least makes you somewhat important to society and makes you feel better about the opportunity to provide for your family. I am living on my last dimes, and I don’t give a fuck about society. But I still feel down. I feel like after 50+ applications that I’ve completed and the interviews I’ve done this far, all went to shit. I don’t even feel like joining a professional workforce, but I know that I have to. The longer I am unemployed, the worse it is for me. I wish I could be as happy as I thought I could be, but I am not. The unemployment checks have not come yet; I would feel more secure once they get through. That is not much, but it is something. Right now, I will run out of money in about a month. My credit card is getting filled with more misery each day, and I know I have to spend money. I need to spend money, but also, I know that that shit will be hanging over me like a fucking seesaw. I want to be in the moment and enjoy this present moment, but I can’t. I am just not. I feel like a loser without a job or income and not much money left to live on. I would have to spend my mother’s or my son’s savings, which breaks my heart and makes me feel even more miserable. I don’t want to spend all this precious vacation time applying for jobs. I just do a bare minimum to satisfy the unemployment claim, but these fuckers haven’t completed a single of my claims yet. I don’t know what to do. I sent them an email today. I need to be more proactive with that shit. I need that misery of compensation regardless.”
It was about an hour and ten minutes commute home. It was just enough time to be with yourself and process life while driving. John’s car turned onto his neighborhood’s street, where everything seemed familiar and felt like home. The sun was still up and shining through the window of the car. He smiled, happy to see his house down the street, the second to last house on the right. Other neighbors returned from work, filling the street with their cars. John parked by his house and went inside. His three-year-old son heard him coming in and ran towards him, screaming excitedly and smiling. John picked him up, raised him high, and hugged and kissed his son. He missed that kid so much. It was always good to be back home. There was a smell of something cocking coming from the oven, and he knew that his wife was cooking something good for dinner.
“Hey, welcome back, daddy,” said John’s wife. “How was your first day at work?”
“Hey, I missed you guys,” John hugged and kissed her. “It was alright. Actually, it’s better than expected. I think this might be a good place to work overall. I work with nice people, have a nice office and a friendly environment. I’ve been looking for this job for a long time, and finally, I found what I was looking for.”
“That’s great to hear. I am glad that you like your new place.”
“Yeah, I am glad too. I was ready for anything after such a long break from work, and I would take anything at this point, but thank God, this job doesn’t suck. Fingers crossed, I can stick around at least for the duration of the twelve-month contract, and then we will see.”
“Sounds good. I’m almost done cooking the salmon, and the rice is ready. Go change, and we’ll have dinner.”
“How was the little one behaving today?”
“He was good for about five minutes, then became restless. We went outside to play, we did shopping, we tried to sleep in the afternoon, but he couldn’t, so he’s been playing and running around all day long.”
“Got it. Hopefully, he’s tired by now, and we’ll put him to bed earlier today.”
“Fingers crossed. But that kid never seemed to be tired. I am ready to go to bed right now.”
“I hear you.”
“OK. Go change quickly. Dinner is getting ready. We are so hungry, and I hope you are hungry too.”
“Yes, I am. Very hungry.” Said John and left upstairs to change.
Family dinner around the table was his favorite thing. He loved seeing his family close together, eating, listening to light jazz music on the speaker, talking, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. He opened the cabinet and pulled out a bottle of red wine. It was a perfect occasion to have good wine for dinner with his family. It became a tradition in a way. John’s wife served the dinner, and they all ate like a small, happy family. People don’t need much to be happy, after all.
After dinner, he bathed his son in the bathtub, and his wife went to put their son to sleep. John cleaned the table and the dishes loaded the dishwasher, and sat on the rocking chair to relax. A nightstand lamp lit the room with a warm yellow light, and the classical music played in low volume on the speaker. John sat there and looked around. It was still unbelievable to him that he made it this far through all the bullshit he had to deal with along the way. Life wasn’t easy. It never is. One has to be strong to make it through and to make it work.
Plenty of times, his hope dissolved in the daily misery and chronic depression that overtook him occasionally. He knew that sooner or later, the job would eventually present itself. The only concern was the timing. Time was never on his side. Time was running out and running fast, along with all his savings, and then there were problems, concerns, anxiety, and depression. In two weeks, it would be his thirty-sixth birthday. Birthdays were not exciting anymore. The more you mature, the more you realize that life wasn’t easy with all the problems piling up, unbearable hangovers, there was no time for anything, and there always was too much to deal with every single day. But now, things would be different. Now, there is another chance. The chance he was waiting for a very long fucking time.
John smoked a cigarette outside before going to bed. It was a warm and dark summer night. He could see the stars above and the planes going back and forth about their business. John watched the nightly sky often, and often, he thought to himself how huge this world is, how infinite the sky is, and that there are so many things out there in the universe and the world. He was just so insignificant, almost invisible part of it. Since his childhood, he has always dreamed about his big future. He was always full of hope or just a hopeful fool. Life had its plan for him, and slowly, it unfolded before him. Just yesterday, he was a useless, broke, unemployed, miserable man, staring at the same sky, wondering and asking questions. Today, his world has changed. He knew it. He felt it. He changed inside, even though one couldn’t tell yet. Somehow, he felt a bit of sadness deep down. It wasn’t the kind of sadness that you feel when you are depressed. It was the good kind of sadness you feel when you know you’ve moved on to the better things, the new beginnings.
Back at home, he opened his laptop and wrote in his journal before bed. Tomorrow is a new day, and he will have another chance.
Journal, August 1, 2023
“Well, here I go again. My favorite month of the year is here. It is the month I was born. It is the beginning of a new life, in a way. It is the first day of my new job at this new company. The first day came and went pretty damn calm and easy. I loved the environment, and overall, the fucking office was the best I ever worked at. The people I will be working with all seemed to be nice. There seemed to be some sort of special and relaxed vibes in that place, which surprised me. I mean, the last company supposedly had a nice group of people, but something felt terribly wrong since day one. Here, it is not like that. It’s kind of relaxing. Or maybe I have matured and grown a pair of balls, and I am no longer an anxious and fearful little asshole, afraid of everything and everybody. The office, for the first time in my life, is not fucking freezing cold. From the fifth story, I have a beautiful view of Philly’s downtown skyscrapers on one side and the rest of New Jersey on the other. From what I’ve seen and heard, this job is definitely a few levels up from where I came from. I have to catch up quickly and well. I mean, I am new, and they tolerate that for now, but I have to step up so I don’t embarrass myself and don’t disappoint these nice people and myself. I will do my best. I mean, what the fuck else am I supposed to do? I’ve got my new chance in life and my career, and everything looks promising. I hope to evolve and acclimate fast and well. I am so fucking tired of constantly looking for new jobs, changing jobs, running away from my insecurities, and looking for something almost impossible to find. I mean, let’s make something out of this one. I have a twelve-month contract. They could fire me way before that if I fuck up. So I need not to fuck up or, at least, survive the next twelve months there, learn as much as I can, and my career horizon would expand significantly for any future opportunity. Well, will see how it is all going to play out. At the moment, I am happy where I am. I will try not to fuck it up. I will try to step up to the game in the best possible way. I am fucking happy I’ve landed this new fucking job at last. Thank you, God, and everybody who prayed, helped, supported, and contributed. I do have another chance at it. I am out of Business Analytics for good if this job doesn’t go well. But in the meantime, I am ready to take my chances and for this new life in front of me. Good things are fucking happening. Thanks God.”
It was a Sunday, the day of the Lord. I woke up with a major headache and wanted to pee very badly. I’ve been up late last night drinking myself to stupor, and now I am paying for it. I opened my eyes and looked around the room. It was the same room, nothing unusual. The room was still dark, and I wasn’t sure what time it was, but I assumed it was still night. It was hard to keep my eyes open, so I kept them closed as I rolled out of bed. I remember the way from my room to the bathroom by heart. I walked it so many times. We lived in this house for the last two years, and it was our new home. I went to the door and opened it. I was trying to walk through the door passage and hit the frame. Fuck. Why? I knew why exactly. I was still drunk as shit. I moved out of the room and into the hallway to the bathroom. My wife slept with our kid across the room.
We slept separately since the baby started to move around the bed more, pushing his way through the bed. There was not enough space for us to sleep on one queen-sized bed anymore, so I decided to move out. It was the right decision. I had to wake up early every morning to do some writing and then to start work. Back in the pandemic days, I worked from home like most people. Now, this was in history, and I had to drive to the office three days a week. Also, this was a great decision because I could get drunk or smoke cigarettes before going to bed, and it wasn’t a problem for anyone. Drinking affected my motor skills the most. I could still think well and analyze my surroundings, but my feet would not listen. With the next move, I hit the wall. Shit. I hope I woke nobody up. I was about two steps away from the bathroom. I opened the doors and hit the lights. The fucking fluorescent spotlights hit my eyes like a sucker punch in my face. My headache exploded, and I felt a sudden and sharp pain inside my brain. Damn. This red wine really got me this time. It was going down so smoothly last night. I wasn’t expecting this kind of abuse. The toilet seat looked at me, and I felt relieved. I pulled down my boxers and sat down to pee.
Sitting down to pee wasn’t homo for me. It was more relaxing, and I could really focus on the duty much faster and not miss the bowl. Also, it was more sanitary. We were busy people, and cleaning the piss smell every day was not an option or possibility. I had to work every day, and my wife had to babysit a toddler, which wasn’t an easy task, to say the least. My hard-on from all the drinking barely fit inside the toilet, but I managed to put it inside and relieve myself. The hot, smelly stream hit the toilet bowl, and my headache worsened by the second. I could feel my head pulsing. I could feel my brain on fire. I could feel my insides hurting. I could hear the loud piss stream for almost two minutes before it was over, and then with my eyes closed, I just sat there trying to get myself together and not to think too much because my head was exploding.
I felt great to get all that wine piss out of my system. It felt great to break the endless strick of the never-ending and super annoying dream cycle of the same fucking dream that rolled on and on, over and over for the last few hours of my sleep. I’m glad that my blodder decided to help me out. I glanced at my watch; it was five minutes before four in the morning. I always wore a watch on my wrist, no matter what. I wore a watch during the day, in the shower, and in bed. I am one of those people who should always have a watch on their wrist, even if you don’t actually need it all that much.
Four o’clock felt better. That meant that I could now go back to sleep and have enough sleep to fucking sleep off the wine overdose from last night before the new day began. I knew the kid would be the first to wake up every morning. He wakes up and goes downstairs to his playroom and plates. Sometimes, he gets bored playing alone and goes up to my room, wakes me up, and invites me to play with him. I love the fact that he does it. I love that my son wants me in his life, even if it’s just to play with him. As a first-time father, it is important to have, observe, and feel these things. On the flip side, I never have a chance to get a good amount of much-needed sleep. During the week, I can’t get enough sleep because of work, and on the weekend, I can’t get enough sleep because of my drinking habit.
I did some minimal calculations in my head, and I had about a good four hours of sleep before the new day began. I stood up with my eyes closed and pulled my boxers up. I flushed the dark yellow pee down the drain and walked slowly toward the door. There is a big mirror in the bathroom, and I glanced at it for a second as I was passing by. I didn’t like the look of the person I saw. The hair was all screwed up and messed up on the left side, and the face was all puffed up and swollen. I had huge dark bags under my eyes, and the eyes themselves were red and glassy. The person in the mirror was me. I hated that look more than anything. I hated to be that drunk and in so much pain. I did it to myself. I keep doing it to myself over and over again.
A couple more steps brought me to the doorway with a light switch to my left. I flipped the switch and walked the hell out of there and into the pure darkness of my hall. My room was to my left, and I rushed myself inside like I was about to lose control of my body and I needed something to lean on. Fuck. Why would I have to drink so much? I closed the door as quietly as possible and fell on my bed. I closed my eyes and dozed off in a minute. The booze was taking me over, and I had no control over it. All I could do was to sleep it off. And I slept until the morning.
The best thing about living in the suburbs is the dead quiet at night. It’s even better if your street doesn’t have street lights. Whenever the sun sets down, then the night comes. It is dark and empty outside, and also very peaceful. I love those peaceful evenings in the late Spring, throughout the summer, and early Fall when sitting on the patio outside was a pleasure. I spent a lot of time sitting outside alone in the darkness of the night and in the comfort of my backyard. I had my drinks and cigarettes keeping me company. That was the time to think, to reflect, to drink, and to forget.
I have always so much on my mind that it gets tough to pass through all that mental baggage I’ve accumulated over the past three decades. As an adult, the mental baggage never seems to go away or get even remotely lighter. There are only more shit to take care of and problems to deal with as days go by, as my youth vanes, as I am battling my demons trying to survive. I’ve had it worse. Much worse. Life was never easy on me, and I was never easy on it either. There has always been a gamble, challenge, and the next thing, whatever it was. There were days when I couldn’t fucking move, as I was so depressed and stressed out, constantly overthinking every stupid thing and making a problem out of everything. I made a slave out of myself, chaining myself to some weird, obscure thoughts and fears that paralyzed my brain, my freedom, and my thought process.
I used to be a mess for a very long time. I never had a positive thought all the way through my twenties and into my mid-thirties. Shit just could never align for me. I had to hustle all the time, and once I stopped, I fucking felt like everything stopped. And the next thing I knew, the world crumbled under my feet, and I was falling into yet another deep and dark valley of constant depression and anxiety. Maybe that’s why drinking was an easy way out. It helped me to forget. I helped not to care too much. It helped only temporarily because, on the next day, I always needed more, but the magic wore off, and the hangovers came, and I found myself as miserable as a person can be.
The sun was up and shining through the window into the room as I slept in the same position I had assumed some hours before. I fell on the bed after my midnight bathroom break. I heard the birds chirping outside, and I heard my kid running around the house, making noise, trying to get some attention. I couldn’t open my eyes just yet, but the minute my brain awoke, I felt every cell inside. I felt it through the numbing and still pulsing pain all over. The next thing I noticed was the bad breath from the red wine. Damn, how I hated that smell. I tried to flip onto the other side, and my internal pain flipped as I did that. Shit, why did the morning come so fast? I needed another night to recover from last night’s alcohol overdose. Let me stay here, in my bed, under my blanket, behind the closed door for a while and relax. Let’s just forget about everything. Maybe I could get another hour or so before somebody breaks into my room and wakes me up.
There was no liquid in my head, and my mouth was dry and smelled disgustingly of red wine from last night. I turned towards my nightstand and reached for the bottle of spring water. There always was a bottle of spring water on my nightstand. I still had my eyes closed as I didn’t want to wake up fully. Let me just sip on some water and get back to sleep. Even for another ten to twenty minutes. Fuck how my head hurt. My hand hit the bottle, and it fell out of the nightstand. Now, I had no choice but to open my eyes to pick that fucking bottle back up from the floor. I unscrewed the plastic cap and drank half the bottle right away. Damn. I was so dehydrated I felt like my eyes dried out. I put the bottle back on the nightstand and flipped on my side, closing my eyes and trying to see at least one more dream or no dreams at all. I don’t care for dreams too much. I don’t mind if I only see darkness while sleeping. I just needed another hour to pass out as I checked out in hopes of recovering better.
I don’t know how much time passed before I woke up again. This time, I was up for good. There was no reason to sleep anymore. I was tired of sleeping. I was tired of my hangover. I was tired of feeling sick. I heard sounds coming from downstairs. My wife was up there with our kid. My wife made breakfast, and my kid played as usual, refusing to eat and only asking for sweet treats. It was almost eleven o’clock at that time. I scrolled through my phone, trying to kill some more time. I checked some emails that came in throughout the week. I was so busy I couldn’t barely check them all out. Most of them were bullshit ads, subscription emails, newspaper emails, and some shit I couldn’t remember signing up for. There was nothing there for me. I checked my Instagram and Twitter apps, and twenty minutes later, I realized that I was not getting anything from any of them. What a waste of time and life scrolling through all that useless and short-lived mess of images, texts, and news, and just pretentious, miserable lives of others. What do I have to do with them? I have nothing to do with them. They have nothing to do with me. Why in the fuck were they all in my news feed at all? Life has got to be more meaningful than that. Where is the sense of looking at other people’s lives, never-ending ads, and always-toxic twenty-four-hour news cycles? Fuck all that, I thought. There is a life out there to live. There are things out there to live for. There is my family downstairs, and I am like a mental invalid watching all that bullshit with my sick head, trying to cure my own problems.
I rolled out of bed and walked towards the window. I opened the curtains and lifted the window up to get some fresh late-summer air inside. God knows, there was no air after last night in here. I walked slowly towards the bathroom. My son heard me walk and ran towards me, shouting happily. “Dady, let’s go play with me!” He said that with the most innocent and honest and brightest smile a person could have. Kids certainly have the purest and most honest smiles in the world. Adults all just pretend to be honest most of the time. I smiled back with my stoned, drunk, and still very sleepy face.
“I’ll be right down with you, son,” I said, giving him a little hug. He started to jump from excitement. He always loves to play with his dad. I wish I had that much enthusiasm to always play with him. There is never the right time. There is always something else to think or worry about. There is always the feeling of mental and spiritual exhaustion and a constant desire to be left alone in peace and quiet. Hugging my son felt great. I created that little human. He is my blood and soul. He is a part of me. He is my biggest love in this whole wide crazy fucking world. His small body felt warm and cozy against my bare skin. I felt grateful to have him. It has been my greatest joy to watch him grow, develop, and become a person. Why I was such a fuck up? I don’t know. I have my demons to battle. I am fighting against them all the time. Sometimes, they win, and sometimes I lose.
I took a cold shower, which sobered me up quickly. I wasn’t sleepy anymore; however, my face said the opposite. I washed myself really well, trying to wash out all the dirt inside of me. I believed a great shower would help me clean my consciousness and forget my sins. I brushed my teeth afterward from that annoying wine combined with a nasty morning breath smell. I really felt cleaner. I was getting back to my senses. I knew that I could start this day as a new person. I just wished that new person wouldn’t fuck up towards the end of the day like I tend to do usually. My family needs me. I need them. I have to try my best not to fuck up again. I will try today. I’m sure I can.
I got dressed and came downstairs to our living room. The kid was there happily, running around and showing me his toys, inviting me to play with him. I kissed my wife and hugged her. “Are you feeling better? Did you have a good sleep?” She asked. “Yes, I am much better now. Thanks for taking care of him and getting me a chance to recover a bit.” She knew the minute she saw me. She always knows. “No problem. We already ate. I have some hard-boiled eggs for you, and a salad is on the table. Want some coffee, honey?” She asked. “Yes, that would be great. Thank you, babe!” How lucky I was to have a woman like that in my life? One can only wonder.
The voice that soothes the soul The eyes as deep as the ocean The face reflects love, sadness, and loneliness, And the attitude like nobody else’s. I listen, I watch, I admire I want you to be here with me Sitting on the couch, side-by-side. I want to light your cigarette And listen to you singing your songs To me, in the darkness of the night In the lonely room for two With some red wine in our glasses And the youth to share with each other Until the sun comes up, and as the daylight breaks in And we are both tired and happy Falling asleep next to each other In the room filled with love, passion, and sex, Where the time stands still, and the lonely Cigarette buds sitting in the ashtray As we embrace each other on the king-size bed And there is nobody else, and there is no tomorrow. It is us, right here, right now, and until We are together and in love, and we have Something only we can understand. We have something in common. We have us and our cigarettes and wine, And my books and your records and our passion. We have it all at this moment.
The clock struck twelve am six minutes ago, and that’s how you know it is the beginning of another day. It is still very early or late, depending on how you look at it. How do you look at it? I haven’t slept yet, so it is getting late, and somebody might just be waking up. Who the fuck knows? It is five o’clock somewhere in the world. I am up and about my business, sitting around on my couch typing whatever nonsense comes to my head. What else is there to do? I don’t have a job to go to. It is Saturday, to begin with. The kid is asleep, and so is my wife. I am the only weirdo in the family who likes to stay up late and drink and write and ramble about random shit. So, here we go. Another shitstorm begins. I am listening to the greatest heavy metal playlist I have ever created, and it kicks ass. It has everything that I need this night to get me through. And I have plenty of beer to help me along. “I don’t believe in love” comes from the speaker by Queensryche band, which sounds really sad and romantic at the same time. Love is love. Love is us. Love is life. Love is losing your mind. Love is ruthless. Somebody must have had a bad relationship after all. Haven’t we all had at least one? Sometimes the shit goes sideways, and you know you are trapped here unless you make that tough decision. And sometimes you feel like, fuck, I might give it another chance. I just don’t want to act on impulse anymore. This still might work out to the best. And often, it doesn’t. I learned it the hard way. I have nothing to hold back. I have no regrets. Whatever happened, happened, what’s next is up to me. I moved on a long time ago because I wanted something new, fresh, authentic, and something that felt right. Not that same old annoying, soul-killing horseshit that I know would never end. We all should move on. Should you follow your head, or should you follow your heart? That is a question that has no right answer. Sometimes it’s the first. Sometimes, it’s the second. And sometimes it is both. I did both many times. I thought it was right to follow my heart because this is where the truth was. Because following your heart would make you happy. Many times it is just a bunch of bullshit. Many times, you should be wise enough to separate the delusion from reality. We all learn this too late after the fuckup settles down. I am looking at my typewriter, which I received for my 35th birthday. I only used it several times since last year. It is a sad acknowledgment. I still prefer my laptop for writing. It is much quicker and almost noiseless. That fucking machine is too loud, and the time is always wrong for me to use it. I think this machine could wake up my neighbors. I want my neighbors to be happy. I don’t want any shit from anybody. But that is not my point. My point is that I am not fully living the life I aspired to live. I want to be a writer and a great writer with that. I am not. A glass half full. I suck. But I still write. Some minimal improvements are happening along the way. I am just not letting it all go to shit. I still want to be here and to write and, one fucking long-time coming day, become a great American writer. What’s wrong with my wish? Nothing. It is my wish. I can wish for whatever the fuck I want. Not everyone was born with that kind of desire. Many people are asleep now or at the bar somewhere or watching the fucking TV in their beds, but I am here, typing, drinking, smoking, and writing. I want to be here. I have planned this moment for myself to be here and to do this, and l love it. And I do what I love and do not have much else to do. History repeats itself yet again. Nobody learned from history nothing. We all are repeating the same fucking lame mistakes or are falling into the same fucking traps as we all did back in the day. I have been fired from a job for the third time since my professional employment began over ten years ago. I am still young, sharp, and driven, sometimes or most of the time. I don’t give much shit about any corporate agendas. I am just trying to play the game right. And sometimes, you can get by, and sometimes you can’t. And I was just too fucking tired and annoyed with all that playing around and pushing it along with nobody else giving much fuck. At the same time, work consumed me and my life and my mind and my soul, leaving me with misery and stress and depression and bleeding. I knew this would happen to me one day. It always does. But I kept that bullshit going. I was too happy and comfortable to see a steady bi-weekly paycheck in my bank account, and I was all right with selling my soul to the devil. Am I a sellout? To some extent, yes. But why would anybody reject a well-paying job? Let me milk this cow until there is no milk left, until all the well dries off until I am sick and tired of doing it. My biggest problem was that I hadn’t spent enough time on my writing while busy with a fucking job. That’s why my typewriter wasn’t utilized as it should have been. That’s why I haven’t written as much as I had hoped. That’s how the comfortable living made me fucking lazy and made me a slave to the system. I partially gave up on anything near and dear to my heart and followed the dollar signs. Now, I don’t have anything to my name. All I have is just me. All I have are just my proletarian hopes, dreams, and useless inspirations. Why wouldn’t I follow my dreams? Why wouldn’t I bank on my writing career? Why do I always feel guilty when I have to enjoy every little fucking moment of my life because I am only going around once!? No, there’s no one home in my house of pain except me. I am sitting here and meditating on some deep life philosophy, trying to figure out where I did anything wrong, alone on my sad couch. It is really not that painful. It feels just about okay now. Actually, it feels fucking great not to go to work, not to work for a man, not to sacrifice anything of mine for the sake of others. I have my family with me. That is all I need. They make me go. I love them dearly. I don’t give a fuck about anything else at all. I just want to be around them always and be happy with them. I want to be a famous writer. I want to live and be completely independent no matter what I do. That is where the happiness is hiding, in that strange, obscure territory. Every time you tell yourself no or go against your heart, something slowly dies inside you, and the light turns into darkness, and a little piece of your life goes nowhere. I’d rather have my life be more meaningful and enjoyable, no matter how long or short. I want to live however I want, regardless of whether that plays against anybody else’s agenda. Fuck them all. This is my life. This is my beer. This is my writing. This is my soul. Life is great. I love it no matter what. No matter the weather, I am here, and I am alive, and I can always make shit happen. And I should always make shit happen for me. Sometimes, it is good to go away. Sometimes relocation is an option and a great one. Sometimes, you can’t move your brain somewhere else and forget about your existence, always pilling up more problems. Sometimes you just got to live that fucking life you’ve always wanted because there might not be another tomorrow. Or the tomorrow you will see will be full of shit and misery, and there might not be a place for you. Buddhists don’t rely on logic. They believe in enlightenment (nirvana) that comes from within, and no logic or intellect can do the same or explain that phenomenon. And I think this makes total fucking sense in my situation right now. The only way to see your life from a different perspective is to live your life like you never did but always wanted. And that means to go against the rules, against common sense, against logic, intellect, the rationality, against anything traditional or normal, against anything that others say or think, and just be there, enjoy that moment, live it fully, see it from the other side, feel the power of being you, feel the power of being a rouge, feel the power of a unique perspective and thinking and capture that experience forever, and let it remind you that you can do whatever the fuck you want and enjoy it because most of the others can’t. They’re too weak, too scared, too insecure, too normal, and too shallow. When do you think you should be fully living and enjoying this life? When you retire? How fucking sure are you that you will ever retire? How fucking sure that there will be any fucking energy or life or passion left in you when you fucking pushing 70 and you don’t have to go to work every day. But then, what do you do? Travel the world? Why wouldn’t you travel it now? Drink all the drinks, fuck all you can, smoke all you can, travel all you can, and do whatever fuck you want to do now while there is some light and life and energy, passion, and spirit inside of you begging for more and begging for freedom now. Why would you want to suppress that? For a steady paycheck? For job security? For healthcare insurance? For acknowledgment from others? For economy? For fucking what? “Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission,” these great words by Charles Bukowski from the poem “The Laughing Heart” are so true and inspiring and so spot on. That’s why I love Bukowski. His poems have a lot of wisdom for an average man to understand, especially this poem. This is why I am writing. This is why I am still at it. This is why I often question myself about how to live this fucking life, so I don’t lose or don’t end up in fucking misery. I might not live forever, but my words and my wisdom can. As long as these are true worlds, as long as these words mean something, they will. They resonate with another lost soul and help it move forward, explore, take risks, and get that one experience that will change the life forever. I am one decision away from getting to where I always wanted to be. It is not a logical or not rational decision, but it will lead me to my happy place. Those Buddhists were on to something. I’m sure. Is the longing for something beautiful, truly inspiring, and relaxing worth the risk of hitting rock bottom? Is it worth risking the uncertainty of tomorrow for a few days of happiness? Is money always a major obstacle in getting to where you want to be? They say being scared means you’re about to do something really brave. Don’t let the unknown stop you from progressing. Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. And that fire should keep you warm and safe all the time, and all other bullshit will go away. Amen!
It doesn’t take too much to be happy. Not much money and not much effort at all. My family was happy again while visiting Sarasota for the second time this year in July. I saw honest and pure smiles on my wife’s face. My kid was happy, too. He’s changed over the last twenty-four hours for the best. This is the place to be. This is the place to live and enjoy and be happy. Happy as one can be happy. This place, a thousand miles from our home, at the very South of the continent, is surrounded by water, alligators, snakes, golf courses, and the best beaches with the whitest sand surrounded by the warmest ocean with the most magnificent sunsets in the country, feels more like home than anything else. I fell in love with this place years ago, and every year, I cannot wait to come back there to just simply enjoy it. I think I found my home. It is here. It is in this ocean, in palms, in the humid air, sunshine, and the ocean breeze. My family loves to come down here. This place became part of my family tradition. This place became our new home. We are simply happy here. Period.
This year has been an interesting one, to say the least. Everything went a downward spiral, and I went down with it. I got fired yet again in early March and have been looking for a job since. The job search was, and pretty much has always been, a miserable experience. You are selling your soul to these corporate assholes for a stable paycheck and job security, and you try to stay optimistic and enthusiastic because you have to, and maybe somebody will say yes. Most of the time, you end up rejected. That is my story. Somehow I don’t feel like joining the workforce because I know sooner or later, I will get fucked over, fed up with all their nonsense and politics. I’ll be getting miserable waking up every morning hating my life, as the job is eating into my life, and the manic depression would settle over my head like the dark clouds before the hurricane. All those jobs, in my experience, ended similarly. There is no happy ending. There is no ending to that day-to-day working misery. It is always there. Fuck, how much I hate it all.
But the Gods were nice to me recently and gave me another chance. I’ve got another opportunity to prove myself in the corporate environment. I’ve got a new job at last. What will I do and how? I don’t know yet. Is that place the right place for me? I don’t know either. But I will be there. I will try yet again to make something work. I will try to do my best at it, and hopefully, if the stars align for me, I will make my history there and leave my mark. I hope everything is going to be alright. There is no reason to be upset. I am not upset at all. I am happy. I am happy because of this new chance and because I had another chance to spend time in my spiritual home, Sarasota, Florida.
In about two weeks, our lives will change. The change is inevitable, and it is coming, and we are expecting it to come and disrupt our family’s time together. I realize that as much time as I spent with my wife and kid this year, I will probably not have an opportunity anymore. In two weeks, each of us will have to follow our own direction, and our lives will be different. We are still a family, but life is about to happen, and it is about time to move on to the next stage of our lives. It is a healthy way of living. It is the way modern life works. We live here, and we have to follow those rules. There is no other way. I hope this change will be a great motivator for us, will bring us closer, and will make our time together even more pleasurable and precious. I know it will. I started to value my free time and my time with family only after I had the least amount of time to enjoy them. I cherished every minute spent, every occasion, every moment together. Sadly, when time is all we have and when you have all the time in the world, you don’t know what to do with it. It is only after the fact that you realize that there is not much time to spend on family quality time, and you know that you should focus on that more.
I am glad and fortunate that we are doing our best to be together and enjoy our life together. This is why we were in Florida again, and we were so happy there. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t have any positive or negative inspiration for the future, as I know too many things I just cannot control. But what I can control is today. I can control how I behave in all those situations and make my way out of all the pitfalls. I can control my present to the best of my abilities and make it something great to think and feel about in the coming years. Then I can look back retrospectively and reminisce about the good old days when I wasn’t prioritizing the modern society’s norms and all those rules of the establishment, and where I wasn’t concerned about the money or job situation, but I was simply focused on making the best of what I have and genuinely enjoy it.
Today, I am making my own history. Today, the history of my family is being made. I am in control of my life and my family’s life. I am trying to do my best to create all those great moments for us to remember, to make us better together, and to love, cherish, respect, and value every minute of our family time. And I think we are doing just great. So long as we are together, so long…
I am turning thirty-fucking-six today. It is not a big deal, I could be eighty, and that, I suppose, would indicate that there is not much left. But since I am still early in my journey and am still alive and kicking and smelling the roses, I got to make my mark on my anniversary. I forgot my age for a moment, and I had to count it all again to make sure it was thirty-six exactly. I don’t feel like it, luckily. I am always nineteen in my heart, which is the most important thing, always feeling young. This last year wasn’t the best I ever had, but I don’t have much to complain about. It had its ups and downs, but I’ve made it. Things are turning to the best eventually, regardless of how shitty they’ve got. I am going through some moments right now, and based on how life goes, with every year, the birthday day becomes less and less important and less exciting. However, it is important for a couple of reasons. One is to reflect on your life and see where you’ve been and where you are going next. Also, it is a good way to start things from scratch, leave all the past bullshit behind you, and focus on building a new life. It’s kind of like New Year’s resolutions, you know what I mean? So, in my honor today, and so you have something to read and raise your IQs, I compiled a list of thirty-six random quotes which were relevant to me this last year from random people who said something smart once. These quotes are both inspirational, meaningful, and funny. I am not referencing the sources because it is too many, I don’t have time for it, and I don’t give a fuck. Some of these quotes are my own, but most are from other people, mostly famous. Happy birthday to me, and you, if you were ever lucky to be born on the same day and until the next one. Cheers, motherfuckers!
1. Once in a lifetime, never again 2. Good things are fucking coming 3. Mondays are awesome. It’s your job that sucks 4. Life’s too short to wait for retirement 5. If you going to do it, go all the way 6. Fuck ‘em! 7. We should not forget our beginner spirit 8. Life’s too short to drink cheap wine 9. We are the people who can have breakfast at any time 10. Life ain’t no sunshine and rainbows 11. You only go around once 12. Enjoy the ride 13. You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you’ll get what you need 14. Desperate times call for desperate measures 15. If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy 16. All those things that weren’t supposed to happen happened. What happens next is up to you 17. Discipline is what you hate to do, but do it as you love it 18. The dream is to die young, as late as possible 19. You are always one decision away from a totally different life 20. Survival has its costs 21. Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees 22. No, no, I don’t want to die. I want to live for the second time 23. The best way to find out if you can trust someone is to trust them 24. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. If he’s still standing, he can fight 25. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it 26. Success is a journey, not a destination 27. Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working 28. Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you did not do than the ones you did 29. There are only two things wrong with money: too much or too little. And there I was, down at the ‘too little’ stage again 30. My heroes are dead, my ambition is quite awake, I don’t believe in tragedy anymore, I believe in mystery 31. Love life, people, you only get it once 32. The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for the cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one 33. It’s thrilling not to know where you’re going 34. Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission 35. Lighting new cigarettes, pouring more drinks. It has been a beautiful fight. Still is 36. …and the dance continues – so, it does…
I don’t know what I don’t know, but I do know something. It is hard to tell if I am wrong or right most of the time, but I have a logic to my madness. I don’t even know where all the madness comes from, but it is there. It is near. I can feel it. I can see it. I am it in a way. We are all crazy in one way or the other, and this is how this world works, and this is how this life works. It makes us all fucking crazy, you know it or not. The chaos can drive people crazy as much as too much discipline. We all try to bounce left or right or up and down to keep our balance, but it is not always easy. It is never easy. Nothing is easy, and nothing is free. Somebody has to pay for your lunch. We have the wisdom there is. We have philosophers, writers, and so many smart people to guide us, but we rarely listen. We’d rather make our own mistakes and learn from them, hopefully. What is the recipe for a happy life? Who knows? Everybody’s life is different, and everybody should take their own path. Still, somehow we all wind up in the same pile of shit, madness, confusion, misery, depression, desperation, and so on. And then we are trying to get out, realizing what has happened to us. We are stumping on each other, pushing each other out of our way, making our way out, and then falling deep down into an even bigger pile of shit. That is life. It is crazy. It is chaotic, and we have to find our way, our path, our love, our madness, and some cigarettes and wine to make it a smooth ride home.
I’ve been going crazy for a very long time now. It is not just one thing that derailed me. There are plenty. Like losing a job. Losing the only income for the family. Not being able to provide anymore while relying on governments support. Losing people around me, losing friends, losing my mind and soul, to what? There was nothing to make me happy and nothing satisfied. All those books, meditations, warm summer weather, and the birds in the sky, nothing mattered. I always knew one truth. And the truth is that nothing will remain the same. Things will change. Things will turn around, and I will be a different man living a different life, a better life. I never knew when that moment would come, but I knew it would, sooner or later. And it fucking did. I never realized how much I was sucked into the system, the same system that was eating me alive, feeding me bullshit, and sucking me in deeper and deeper each day. Now that I have been out of it for a long time, I know that I didn’t matter, the system didn’t matter, the bullshit didn’t matter, and that you could live without all that shit. I couldn’t see clearly then. But now I do.
The dark clouds obscuring my vision have vanished, and the sun came up over my head, and while it was blinding me during the daylight, I could see like never before. My senses came back, the smile on the blank face reemerged, the meaning of life returned, or at least the feeling of one came back to me to help me get out of that hole. Today is a new day. It is a better day for many reasons. The main reason is that I am still alive and kicking. The other reason is that I have something to live up to and go after, and the realization that the writer inside of me was still there. He was scared, shy, not interested, and not willing to be present when I needed him, but he was back, and so was I. Also, my closest people are still with me, which means they are real, they are true, and they are my people. It means that life is worth living for.
And just like that, there goes another cold drink and another pack of cigarettes. This is all meant to help me get the fuck out of my head, take it easy, forget, ignore, procrastinate. Was it helping? Fuck if I know. Rather distracting. But that is the only way I know how to deal with tough shit in life. Countless bottles of alcohol and cigarettes and so many dark, long nights and dark, sad thoughts about my future and miserable present, and I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as of recently. I think I do. There isn’t much of light, but it beats darkness, as Bukowski said long ago. That is a perfect poem and a perfect line. I wish I read it sooner. I wish I had understood so many things sooner; I wouldn’t have to be in the same dark hole. I guess we all learn a few things about life a little too late after the fact. I think this is how life works for most people. Definitely for me. I have to burn myself, sometimes multiple times, to learn my lessons and clearly see what is what and who is who.
I am not a bad man, but I am a sad man. I am sad most of the time, and there is sadness in anything I see, good or bad. It is all around me. I am sad about the present because there is always too much shit to deal with and battle through. I am sad about the future because I can see none. All I can see is the darkness and nothing. I am sad about my three years old son, who was lucky to be born here in this country, but the future, just in general, is not promising anything good long-term. Somehow, as optimistic as I am, I try to stay true to myself and real and cold-headed, which leads me into darkness and sadness. Fuckness. Things just seemed so smooth and easy and fun when I was younger. Somehow, when you become an adult, and I think this is part of becoming an adult, is that you see things from a more realistic and also consider all the obstacles and dangers; you know that this world is just full of shit and madness. I don’t require much. I am not a selfish and delusional asshole; I know exactly what and how much I want in this life. The bare minimum, like a quiet and free life by the beach, worryless. I want to live my life, do my thing, and never worry about any bills to pay or economic crisis, recessions, crazy politicians, climate change, cancer, traffic, jobs, and misery of it all. I just want to live for a moment and be able to enjoy it fully. Is it that much to ask for?
The romance of the youth is a disaster plan for an adult. It takes time to realize those things. It takes time, casualties, years, broken hearts, hundreds of cigarettes, and gallons of liquor to figure it all out. There is no easy way to learn it otherwise. Nothing is meant to be easy. You and I had to face the real issues face to face and stay strong in our beliefs and push our way out of the bullshit and into a better life if we only could. Things that seemed so glorious and great at one point in time don’t seem so great all the time. Later on, many of those great things seem like a bunch of dumb ideas.
We change. Our thoughts and beliefs change. Our jobs change. Our life changes, and so do the stock market indexes and the weather and all those things. And who knows the real truth of it all? Who knows the right path anymore? I don’t. Maybe it is better not to know. Maybe living in constant expectation of a surprise or a disaster is the way to go. That is a good question to ask and look for an answer years from now. Time will tell. Time never sleeps, never rests, and doesn’t give a shit about you and me and our problems and issues. It always keeps moving. We should always keep moving. Movement is life. Life requires some basic movement. It’s that simple.
Grey morning instead of a great morning Friday is the best day of the week When you know, the bullshit will be over after today, and you Can live your life again, just like you always wanted. There will be no jobs, no work shit, and no bullshit to deal with It will be you and your family and your life for a moment. Men spend their lifetime building a career, Climbing the stairway to corporate hell Six-figure salaries, bonuses, And the best benefits you can find around. Nothing is too few. Nothing is enough. The hunger for more blinds you. It is all there is on this fruit tray with poison. This is your poison pill. Once taken twice shy. Take your chance to free yourself. Half of what you make goes to the Uncle, Another half would cover the debt. What’s left for you? After those never-ending jobs? What is left of you, and your soul When you sit all alone in a dark room. You need the job to feed yourself. Then the job starts eating you alive, like a fucking snack, Like a drive-thru burrito. You become the product, and you become the food. You become a slave of modern society. All you ever want is to live a normal life. A working-class hero is no better than an Working-class slave. What’s the difference? There is none. None of you can make a choice Not to have a job, not to work for somebody. A man is a man when he is still a man. The job is the job until it starts eating into man’s soul. And then it becomes torture. The man is more of a man when he refuses to enslave himself For meaningless jobs that take away his life. A man is a man when a man can fight to survive. The working-class heroes are always busy these days.
My shit’s out of luck yet again As I pour down the cold Heineken down my Poor sorry-ass throat. The wents are turning right above the yellow light bulbs At the local bar where I drink. They don’t give a fuck that I am down on my luck They don’t give a fuck either way All they had to do is to keep spinning Running the alcohol-infused air around. There are TV sets all around the bar, but they Show and tell you nothing They are a distraction from real life. There is loud music playing in the bar Making the cold beer go down smoothly. My shit’s been out of luck My life’s been out of luck I guess this is what it is, and everything Is fucked. The end of one thing is just the new beginning The old life ends following a new one I am down on my luck as there hasn’t been much And I pour another beer down I’ve been down this road before And the present does repeat my past I will be out of this shit in no time I think I’ll just have to do my best. Cheers to all of you poor shmucks Who feel just like I do today Remember, there will be sunshine On our street some day. As the wind blew the fallen leaves down the street My six-figure salary was blown away Just like that.
Sometimes, we all wish to go back in time and relive certain moments. I yearn to experience the rush and thrill of my younger days, even though they weren’t necessarily the best days of my life. I’m not interested in returning to that time because it has been difficult, but instead, revisiting how I saw the world then, the places I frequented, the people I used to know, and all the things I did or didn’t do. I want to understand how I managed to get through that difficult period in my life while searching for who I am. I want to experience those sparks of hope that ignited me back when I struggled mentally and professionally. I long to regain my beginner’s mindset in my mid-late twenties and see the world with fresh eyes once again.
I discovered something new about myself back then in 2016. 2017 continued in the spirit of an inspired writer who didn’t write much, but there was so much inspiration in me that I didn’t know what to do with it. I was overwhelmed by it, in a way. I loved being overwhelmed with all those new experiences and thoughts that occupied my mind. I was an inspired young writer then; I wrote a little at the time, mostly poetry. I wrote it on my phone often, as it came to me while smoking a cigarette in the parking lot. I felt great, cool, and one of a kind, seeing myself as a poet. Nothing of this sort had ever happened to me before. The list of poems grew over time. My reading list grew over time. I wanted to be like Charles Bukowski, my writing hero. That depraved old man inspired my young confused mind so much that after reading just a few of his poems, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I looked around at things, people, and events around me, and poetry lines were composed inside my head. Some of them I captured, and many of them were lost somewhere deep inside my mind and down the history lane. What I got then was something I couldn’t even imagine doing before. I, a nobody, a confused dumb kid, could become a writer and a poet. That felt really novel and fucking great. That was a pivotal point in my life, one of the few that laid the ground for my writing for years.
I remember how and when I wrote my first poetry. I was on my bed in my mom’s house, in my room, with my MacBook Pro laptop. It was a lame and pretentious poem, but it was the first one, and many more followed shortly after. You can’t be judging that shit too hard. It gave me something to work with and to work for and eventually launched me as a writer. Everything great once started as nothing, many times as a mistake, and many times as an accident. This was one of the most remarkable accidents that ever happened to me. Still, I haven’t recovered. I like it this way. I want to write. Writing helped me over the years while dealing with life and its pitfalls. Jobs failed me, and I failed jobs; relationships failed me, and I failed relationships; people, in general, failed me and failed many people in my life, but I’ve learned my lessons, and I continued to write throughout all that time. Writing became my own very effective therapy. I woke up early in the morning, pulled out my laptop, and started to write. I often did not know what I would write about, but somehow ideas came, words formed, words turned into sentences, and sentences turned into pages of written material. Somehow I ended up with over two hundred poems and a handful of prose material, and I had to do something about it. And I did.
I revisited all the poems I ever wrote and collected them into my first poetry collection, “My Poems My Soul.” I came up with the name based on a poem with the same title. It sounded very poetic to me. It sounded like something Bukowski would have written or named one of his poems. I wasn’t trying to imitate Bukowski or copy his style, but so much of his influence poured out of me and into my writing that I couldn’t help it. I heard Bukowski’s voice in my head as I was writing my poems. It felt unusual. I felt like Bukowski a lot of times. I was reading his poetry and listening to his novels and short stories on Audible, fueling my creative mind and soul. Little did I know then that all that fascination would result in me publishing my own books years later. I self-published “My Poems My Soul” in 2020 during the pandemic. My second collection of mostly short stories and some new poems, called “Nicetown,” came out in late 2022. Today I am a real writer, not just some wannabe romantic with a temporary inspiration, but an actual published writer with a good amount of my work in the literary world. I also created a blog where my original writing experiments were posted. That blog helped me stay in shape and continue my regular writing routine. I knew I did that primarily for myself, and if other people find that interesting, that would be even better. But it all was done for a selfish me to keep me at work, keep me writing, writing, and posting regularly. This is why I stayed more productive over the last three-four years. This is how “Nicetown” book came up to be. This was a collection of all that blog writing, primarily short stories and some better poems I published since I created my blog in late October 2019.
Getting one thing started randomly on my bed with my laptop eventually launched me to become who I am today. I am not famous but rather very much infamous. Fame is great, but I the lack of it doesn’t bother me much. I haven’t achieved any accomplishments or recognition, my books don’t sell, and nobody but a handful of people in my circle know that I write. But that is ok. I have patience. I still think that the best is yet to come. I have yet to publish something that would eventually resonate with the general public and get my name out there. I am not an attention whore, but let’s face it, all writers are and want to be one and are continuously searching for and hoping for all the attention they can get. Most writers are egoistic, self-centered, and self-indulging assholes; all that writing is not there for no reason. We all want to be famous, great, and beloved, and we all want people to admire us, praise our books, recite our words, make movies based on our books, give us prizes, kiss our assess, and make us invincible and untouchable and superior in that fashion.
I don’t know what I want to do next in my life, hanging here, staying on the edge of the cliff, at the crossroads, or whatever the fuck I am today. I know one thing for sure, I will continue to write, even if that is just for myself, even if nobody in the world will ever see or read anything I wrote. I remember how excited and obsessed I was with the Californication show, watching it for the first time back in 2016. Based on the image of my beloved Charles Bukowski, the main character, Hank Moody, was a great visual of a modern writer with some complicated behavior and dealing with his struggles, but mainly inspiring me even more to write. I saw a writer who wasn’t a fucking bore. Hank Moody was a real man, a great writer, and he hated all that fame shit and the consequences of it, which continued to follow him throughout the show. That show was so great, funny, witty, and personal to me that even today, in 2023, I am still watching it on repeat, getting entertained, getting a good laugh, and learning something new each time. It is still, in many ways, a highly relatable show in both the writing and social world we live in today.
I discovered that show when I was going through the worse times in my life, mentally and professionally. I found my great escape in that show. It was not just entertaining but also a great escape from the brutal reality I was living in. It felt like the stars aligned for me back then in 2016, and everything I got my hands on, watched, listened to, or read let me into this new life, a life of a writer, the unlimited, crazy world of literature with all its complications and struggles. I can’t remember another time when all the puzzle pieces fell together for me and showed me a new life, a new perspective, and a world I hadn’t seen before. I am grateful to destiny, whoever it is, and a stupid random accident or sequence of events that got me writing. I am happy where I am and looking forward to a better future. The longer I stayed in this writing world, the more great things happened for me, the more I could do and create and write, and this new universe kept building up and around me. I am happy in this place. The real writing will stay. Real writing will live forever.
Every road leads somewhere, Even if you are going with no directions. There will be stops, and turns, and exits, But the road always goes on As long as you are. You should follow your destination. Even if you don’t have one Something will come along and You will see the signs. You will feel them, You will see the light eventually. There is a long road ahead of you As you barely started this trip On this never-ending highway. Life is always rough. It should be. This is how you grow. This is how you learn. This is how you develop. This is how you move forward. This is what will keep you going. This is what will make you go Following the road, Following the path, And eventually finding yours. There will be traffic on your way, Exits, bridges, and dead ends. But you will have to find your way out. You might get lost sometimes, But if you keep searching You will find and reach your destination. You will find where you belong in this life.
The sun is up and shinning, It is shinning in your face Making you feel happy, helping you see better. It could also blind you, too, preventing you from seeing Your path clearly. You always got to keep moving forward. Until you can Until there is no life in you left, no energy And passion for something. Even if you don’t know what it is Things eventually will turn around. Things will come about. Solutions will present themselves eventually. You just got to keep on moving, keep going, Keep following your path, Keep following your road to the unknown. Go straight ahead and never look back. The past is behind you. The past will not help you build your present. The past will not help you build your future. You are building your future today, right now. For a better tomorrow, Or worst, depending on what you do. You just got to keep going, Keep going. There will be many destinations on your way. There will be many obstacles in your way. You have to be mindful. You have to be careful. Enjoy the ride.
It rains outside this early grey morning, And Ludwig van Beethoven is playing for me and nobody else. I read in the newspaper today about the cause of his death from The latest study which revealed that he died of Cirrhosis of the liver and hepatitis B From too much drinking. Poor Ludwig, the genius, one of the major composers Died completely deaf, shitting his pants with his liver falling on him At age 56, some 196 years ago. Well, this is interesting and sad news at the same time. All creative people are doomed people All creative people are suffering people All creative people have demons inside them All creative people are fighting the darkness With substances while creating the art To be lived for centuries or forever. He could’ve been a regular family man, Working a merchant job somewhere in Vienna, Raising a family and eating dinner with them every evening Going to work and paying his bills on time. That wasn’t an option for him, though. He was too big for that. He sure was something larger than The average working guy trying to survive. He created some of the best immortal music For all of us to enjoy, and humanity will cherish that music forever While poor Ludwig suffered miserably for his craft, Fighting his demons and eventually losing The fight of all fights.
While Beethoven was on his deathbed, somebody snipped a lock of his hair. The lock of his hair with today’s modern technology Helped scientists figure out the cause of this death. The analysis of his DNA told all the secrets, And more. Poor Ludvig, you can rest in peace now, Your music lives on and still brings the highest Quality of anything ever created. That fucking lock of hair exposed you as an alcoholic What the fuck do these kids know about the Life of a genius from two hundred years ago? By the way, they still don’t know what caused his early hearing loss Or his gastrointestinal issues. And also, somebody way back then in that family tree Has been unfaithful, as the research suggests. That fucking Y chromosome knows best.
It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when he hit the local bar. This was not his usual schedule. He rarely drank in bars lately at all. He liked the privacy of drinking at home, and with that, once his kid and wife were asleep. That way, it was more peaceful and private around the house, and he knew that nothing and nobody would disturb his time alone with a drink.
It was the second day of March, and it felt that way. There was nobody at the bar when he came in. Four tall windows showed the small town’s street with people walking and cars driving by. He was at the local hipster bar on the opposite side of that street. Bar made more sense than anything else.
The bar was lit mainly by the daylight coming from the multiple windows. About six fans were mounted to the top of the toll ceiling, spinning mid-tempo, running the air in the old English-style building. Underneath the spinners were plain mid-size lamps with yellow lights. They did not add much to the bar’s overall situation, as it was still bright daylight outside. These lamps with fans would give somebody a spinning head once drunk and staring at them for too long. Several small private tables were scattered around the bar near the entrance and some against the walls. In case somebody did not want to sit around the square-shaped bar with a bunch of strangers and their looks and possibly get into unwanted conversations with them, these tables were the place. Bar is where if you drink for too long, you might acquire a few new friends, want it or not.
He was on his second Heineken now, looking around, his face serious with his thoughts. The bartender was a young hipster girl with short spiked hair, piercing on her face, and tattoos on both arms, one with a full sleeve. She was of unidentifiable age, but her face looked young, especially when she smiled. Kids, these days, looked so strange and confusing, he thought. She might have been anywhere near twenty-one and up to thirty-five. Who knows? She wore a bar uniform of black pants and a black short-sleeved shirt. She never introduced herself to him, and he didn’t bother to find out her name either, as long as beers kept coming without much wait.
“Want another Heineken?” the bartender asked. “Sure, thanks.” He would answer. That was the entire conversation he had at the bar all day.
He had a lot to process. A lot of things were on his mind these days. Once in a while, life brings these fucking problems, and there is no better place to go but a local bar to clear your head. He expected the bad news, but the timing was wrong. He knew everything would eventually come down to this but not this kind of suddenly. Not today?! Well, it was in the past now, and the future was still cloudy and obscure with anger, frustration, and general misery. I mean, he tried his best. He had to. There was a house, a child, and his family to care for. Want it or not, somebody had to hustle. It wasn’t always this bad, but somehow with time, things worsened, and he knew for a while that this day would eventually come. He was trying to keep his livelihood going for as long as possible. He loved to live a worryless life and not worry about the next paycheck or bill coming or how much groceries cost these days.
It was still daylight, and some new visitors entered the bar. A middle-aged lady was drinking her white wine and addictively scrolling through her phone screen. A hipster guy was sitting in the opposite corner, drinking who knew what. He couldn’t see him well because of the bar stand in the middle, but he could hear him well. He was having a friendly chat with the bartending girl. They seemed to know each other. Maybe he was a regular? They may have grown up in this neighborhood. Maybe he was there to make some moves on that girl with tattooed arms and face piercing with spiked hair?
He felt like smoking a cigarette. There was no smoking inside the bar. Not in this bar. Not in this neighborhood. There were almost no bars left where you could still smoke inside. You had to take it outdoors. He put on his leather jacket and strolled towards the entrance. He hasn’t paid for the beers yet, but that seems not to be a problem for anybody here. Each bar has its own rules. It wasn’t necessary here. If the bartender stopped him, he would tell her he would be back after smoking. The bartender girl was mainly involved in a conversation with a hipster guy most of the time. Nobody even noticed that he had walked out.
The air outside was fresh, and the street was tiny. The sidewalk was narrow. There was barely a place for two people to walk by one another on those tiny sidewalks. He lit his cigarette and exhaled the smoke in the suburban air. The cars lined up on the street at the red traffic light. He was trying to ignore everything and everyone around him. He knew these people were staring, and he caught a few of those looking at him as he smoked, then turning their heads around back to the street traffic once their eyes met. Did they all know what happened? Why did he get this feeling as they did? Are these their mocking looks? Or are those more sympathetic looks people in the cars gave him? Don’t worry about these cars and these people and the traffic. Don’t worry about the beer you are drinking today. You needed that beer for a long time. You deserved it. You didn’t deserve what happened to you today, for sure. Very few people deserve that. Not you. You did well. You were working hard every time and every day. You are a good man. You are a good man. You are the last good man on the planet Earth. You are a better man than anybody in these cars staring at you right now. You are better than anybody at this bar. Hell, you are even better than that Heineken you are drinking. The whole thing was just unfair. Life is always unfair. Somehow, after the highs always comes to the lows. Life has its balance.
Other pedestrians were walking around randomly on this and the other side of the street. They had their own business to do and places to go. They all looked like they had a plan. I don’t have any plans. I don’t even want any plans for the next few days. I am just a bit overwhelmed with life at the moment. Beer is helping, and so does the cigarette. But hell, it takes time to heal. There will be tonight, and then there will be tomorrow, and then there will be the next week and the next month, and the next year. Things will be much different a year from now. Life will be much different a year from now. It all could be so much better a year from now. There are certainly some great mysteries in the future for all of us.
People walking around did not look specifically weird except for a guy wearing a cowboy head and some cowboy outfit and the teenage girl with purple hair. In a hipster neighborhood like that, there are usually more strange people per capita, and they all somehow had to be on the street doing nothing but walking around, going about their business. There were no more blondes and brunettes, as most of the kids these days had their hair in a color of a rainbow. All had some weird piercings and hairstyles and lots of fucking tattoos. They were just some random strangers who he would never see again in his life. So, why bother? Please don’t stare at them. It’s their own thing. Why does it bother you? Don’t you have more important things to worry about? Yes, you do, yes you do. I don’t mind anybody. I don’t care. I am trying to distract my thoughts with something else and just trying to refresh my mind by looking around, smoking a cigarette, and wondering. I like to wonder. Nothing specific. I mean, sometimes you have to live. There is no need to overthink anything. There is no need to worry about anything until something terrible happens. And even if something terrible happened, you can still think of something good. You can still change your mindset. You have to try it sometimes. You can always change your life.
The cigarette was burning to the end, and he threw it out with his last long drag. He turned around, exhaling the cloud of smoke into the air, and grasping the entrance door handle, he walked back into the bar. Something changed inside of him. He felt better inside. He felt like he belonged there. He felt like he had returned home. A home, that only place where we all, no matter how fucked up, feel safe, warm, wanted, and all the troubles go away at home.
He ordered another beer and a shot of whiskey. Let’s speed up the recovery, he thought. The whiskey shot went down smoothly. It felt liberating. Sometimes people must fill themselves up with rough shit to feel better later. It helped. Beer chased it all down well, and the feeling of easiness overcame him. His problems didn’t seem to bother him anymore. The lamps with spinning fans on the ceiling looked good. The random pedestrians walking by looked better. It is what it is, he thought. It’s true what they say; the end of one thing is the beginning of something new. New life was about to start. It’s not dark yet. It’s too soon to feel that way. Life always comes at you in waves. Things change with time. Time changes who you are, and sometimes even you have to change at the end.
“You want another one?” The bartender asked. “Sure, thank you.”
She brought a new beer in about a few seconds, perfect service. He smiled and thanked her again after seeing the new cold beer on the bar top. There was this beer, and there were a few more. Then it was time to go home. It was getting late. He was getting lit. He had to drive home regardless. He had to be careful. Who needs more trouble in one day?
He paid his tab and put on his leather jacket. He went to the bathroom. The bathroom was a narrow room with a high ceiling and black and red walls. He washed his hands and looked at himself in the mirror. He was still there. He looked more serious and sad than usual, but it was him in that mirror. The man who just parted with his past and will be moving into his new life right after he leaves this bar. It’s going to be ok, he thought. You’ve had enough for one day. You did what you could. It was time to move on anyway. He knew it. He knew it all along.
He walked out of the bar and onto the tiny street. It was getting darker now and felt a bit colder too. He pulled out a new cigarette and lit it. He strolled towards his car, smoking his cigarette, not thinking about anything anymore. The wind blew a bit harder as he turned the corner of the street. Trees moved their naked branches, and the dead leaves from the last Fall along with his six-figure salary, were blown away just like that. He didn’t pay much attention to the wind, leaves, or anything. He just wanted to go home to his wife and son. Tomorrow will be another day. Tomorrow will be a new future – the future which we all always anticipate so much but also are so afraid of at the same time. He started his car. The twenty-year-old engine roared cold and tired. The white exhaust clouds came out of the muffler polluting the cold suburban evening air. He pulled out of the parking space, onto the street, and into his new life.
It has been some time since I sat down to write something new. Life’s been busy, you know? Life happens as we speak. One thing that changes as you grow older and become a family man is that time becomes more of an essence, is always short and passes by quickly. Back in my youth, I noticed time passing slowly. I always waited for things to happen; they couldn’t happen fast enough. Things have changed since then. I have changed since then. Once a careless lad with nothing to worry about but going to school, getting passing grades, and then making some money on the side from my never-ending restaurant job and now I have adult responsibilities like going to work every day, contributing to my 401K plan, feeding my family, raising a son, and making timely mortgage payments and so on. There is no time to smell the roses. There is no time to get a proper amount of sleep. There is no time to rest on the couch with a beer in my hand and a movie to watch for the evening. There is almost no or minimal time for writing. Where did all the youth go? Where are all the friends now who were so much around? Where is that warm sunshine of the good old young days that blinded us back in the day with its light and made us act on the impulse and live for the moment? Fuck if I know.
It’s warmer now outside. Mid-February feels like mid-April, and that makes me feel better. Winter depression seems to evaporate as the early warm sunshine fills the day with its presence, fooling us into believing that Spring is here. I wish this would be the case. The days are getting longer now, and there is more sunshine than I ever remember during winter. The temperatures are up across the country, and global warming doesn’t seem like a problem to most. This early warm weather makes me feel young again. I reminisce about the days of my youth when things just started to happen to me. All those things I did, and some I still do, made me the person I am today. I love to go back down memory lane, thinking about how it was. I never knew where I would end up in a few years, not even a few days from now. I enjoyed most of it. I knew that this was me exploring the world, getting my hands on and my thoughts about adult life, trying to become part of society, trying to become a grownup, trying to write my first lame poetry.
I got a few calls from different people I knew in the past since the new year began. We were all, in one way or another, close back in the day and had some shared history we lived through together. Each of those three represents a certain point in my past life, and it was interesting to go back in time in my head and recall the events from the past. I remembered how I felt about things and people back then, what was on my mind back then, what issues I had to deal with, and how I felt. And mainly, the most exciting thing was that I felt like I did back when I was young, and I just faced life straight and was trying to figure it all out.
Somebody from the past, whom I hadn’t seen or heard about in fifteen years, resurfaced in my life and reached out to me, and we chatted. It seemed that time was standing still between us all those years. I was happy to reconnect and revisit where we left off. Some people never change, whether good or bad. This person did not fucking changed at all, and I went straight back down the time capsule, and it felt great. We talked about the friends we knew and hung out with back in the day. Most of them are not friends anymore. There are reasons we do not hate each other; we just took different paths in life. If I met some of those friends today, we’d have smiles and laughs, and it would be cool to see one another. I was surprised to get these kinds of calls anymore. I was surprised that after so many years with no contact, somebody decided to reach out to me and was interested in reconnecting and meeting up again. I rarely get any calls from people I still am close friends with. But once somebody reaches out to me from fifteen years ago, it makes me wonder. It makes me feel happy in a way. Since we all grew up and became adults, most of us with families now and busy daily lives. Many things we used to do, and many people we used to hang out with, dropped off from our lives. It usually happens that way if there is no reason to or if there are no circumstances that keep us together; those relationships disappear with time. The more I think about the past, about my past life, the more I am convinced that regardless of how tough and uneventful it seemed to me back then, looking back, it was a great fucking life.
Music was always in my life. Music, just like the scent, has this incredible ability to bring back our memories. I often go back to listening to music I loved listening to in the past. I think of something from the past, and then I pull the album or a playlist or a song and play it. I play the shit out of it while I think and reminisce. I often go back to the older recordings or albums and revisit them repeatedly. A lot of time, I find something new to me that I haven’t noticed before. There is something closely relatable in the lyric, or there is a chord progression or a sound that I missed when listening to this song earlier, but now I cannot help but focus on that and think about it more and how it resonated with me and how it all makes me feel today.
It feels good to look back at my early struggles, whatever they were back then, and how things changed and I overcame all of that shit, and I am still around, with a wine glass in my hand, with a family in my house, and with two self-published books out there in the world. No struggles are permanent, and nothing will last forever. Shitty ones always follow happy moments, and they exchange one another repeatedly. I have noticed that during my shittiest moments, usually because of my workplace, my creative juices flowed like a fucking Niagara Falls. I wasn’t even thinking about any creative ideas as I so them everywhere around me. I thought about writing them down, writing my stories, my poems, and even thinking about my yet-to-be novel, but most of it just stayed in my mind then. I want to capture all of them somewhere in the box and use them as needed later. I knew that my job was shit, my boss was an asshole, my coworkers were not as nice as they pretended to be, and neither did they give any fucks about me, my life, and my career. I knew I didn’t belong there. I still don’t relate to most people or belong to organizations, and jobs, making me a weirdo and a more authentic individual. At this point in my life, I am very familiar with myself as a person, who I am, what I do, what I want, what I like, and where I want to be, and that is all that matters. I no longer depend on or give a shit about others’ opinions as I know I am not living my life for anybody but me. And I am going to make it worthwhile.
Sitting here today makes me wonder what the future is going to bring. Will the future be kind to me? How much more shit do I have to go through before I feel complete and fully satisfied? Am I on the right path? What the fuck is the right path anyway? The only way to find out is to live it and see it. Nothing will happen unless I take action. Tomorrow will be here regardless of whether I will be here. Tomorrow will depend on my decisions from today and from before. I am in charge of my tomorrow, and you are in charge of yours. I wish this early Spring weather stays here until the summer, but I know that the fucking winter is not done yet with us. There is always a proper time for everything. The day is always followed by night. Nature has its balance. Nature has its laws. It’s us who don’t have any of it or don’t follow any of the rules, and a lot of time, common sense, and we are all running around and freaking out about every little stupid shit. But while we are here today, we can all enjoy the incredible beauty of nature and the sunshine above our heads. It is a perfect time to capture and enjoy these pleasant brief moments of our lives and the early Spring and be young at heart as we once were.
Success tastes like great fucking champagne. Not the local bullshit But something foreign, Something that is from far away, and Something that tastes like nothing special Until you know the price per bottle, Then you appreciate it. You sip it, sip by sip and The feeling of the chilled bobbles in your throat Registered in your mind for a moment And then the dry finish aftertaste, which tastes like an ass, but it’s an Expensive big ass success that you’ve achieved Through all these years of hard work. Nothing will ever taste like this anymore. It is like popping the cherry, Not the most pleasant but one of the most memorable events. Your crisp white dress shirt pressed against your body, The body of the successful man With a bright chest, breathing smoothly With a smirk on your face With a fire in your eyes That burns fucking everything around. Everything that you look at And everyone is just mesmerized. You drink more, and then you smoke with pleasure, As the music of success is playing in the background. It is your favorite band with your favorite song And that is all you want to hear at the moment. Fuck all those side-noizes, Meaningless sounds of destruction. Your mind is drowning in the booze And you just don’t give a fuck Like a true winner, like a true champ. You’ve made it. You are a successful man. And you should be proud of it.
