Nobody Was Supposed To Cuddle

The fucking never bothered me. The fucking was the whole point. The fucking was the purpose of the arrangement, and we all did lots of that. From all of our previous exploits, I had gotten quite accustomed to watching it. We were all supposed to be involved exclusively for the fucking. No problems there. It was the cuddling that stung. I didn’t anticipate that, and I was unprepared for it. Nobody was supposed to cuddle. Nobody was supposed to develop feelings, and our unpreparedness for that event opened the door for injury. I got dragged in too. It led down a long, strange, dishonest road. It led to jealousy and hurt feelings. It led to manipulation. It led us to all sorts of places that we hadn’t planned on going. You put a condom on your dick to make sex safer, but there’s really nothing that you can wear to make cuddling safe.

In Front

At 5:15pm, I’m in front at the light, watching the girl and the guy and their long goodbye. There’s an asshole leaning on his horn. He must be so far back that he cannot see that the light is still red.

At a different light, I catch a cute goth girl in the car in the left lane looking at me. I smile. She smiles back. The smell of exhaust and fried food wafts in through my open window. I breathe it in deep, and it adds years to my life.

I’m going home, but getting there slowly. Stuck in traffic and cursing, I can see a horse-drawn carriage. It’s gridlocked like me. It’s gridlocked with me. The two horses and I laugh ‘til we cry.

Squirrels

Squirrels are amazing. There are a lot of them running around the streets where I work. They’re constantly jumping from trees, running up telephone poles and into garbage cans. They’re great. Today I observed a squirrel dive into a garbage can and emerge with what must have been half of a candy bar. He darted from the can, up a tree, and between two houses before you could count to three. He must have been experiencing an incredible, euphoric joy. In that moment, it occurred to me that I am an asshole. I will deserve whatever suffering befalls me. The squirrel has half a candy bar and he is overjoyed. His life will span, at best, a fraction of mine. The sum of his life experiences will be proportionate. I have a nice job, a car, a house, a cell phone, computers, friends, family, a wife, a girlfriend, and all the enriching art, music, food, comfort, and healthcare I need. I live at the high water mark. As I walk down the sidewalk, gourmet coffee in hand, I am discontent, miserable. I am a plague upon the Earth. The squirrel is more enlightened and of far better stock than myself. People like me are parasites. I don’t want what I deserve. I want what I want because I’m too dumb to know better. I am proof that there is no such thing as god. If there was, he would have hit me with a bus by now.

Easy Moments

We had sweet, small, easy moments, in the early hours of the morning. Naked and having tea at the kitchen table. Our house’s windows are sufficiently high, that you can’t really see below her shoulders from the outside. I was always tired and slow to move. She was always hung over and sore. She was a burning paper airplane, destined to be ash before hitting the ground. I’d be there to help clean up.

Shower Scum

She was showering in my shower, in my bathroom. I was also in my bathroom, trying to watch, but the glass was clouded with soap scum. At that moment, I really began to regret my poor housecleaning habits. I could more or less figure out what was going on, but couldn’t quite see the details as well as I’d have liked to. Details are important. She knew she was putting on a show. It dawned on me to get a bottle of Windex and clean the shower door. Before I did that, I thought better of it and just stepped in.