I won't ask if you missed me. Because I don't believe anymore that you exist.

(Saturday morning fresh and hot)

[The character Dopamine Junkie is alone in the house on a Saturday afternoon.
She is hiding. Laundry spinning in the dryer.
Freshly washed, freshly stony, watching Chungking Express on Bravo.
#1 Pet Peeve = Waiting for Boys on a continuous loop in her mind.
Half a muscle relaxer to relax the aching muscles. She is writing.]

[I have recently redefined my long-term goal to be a multi-media content goddess
by the time I am 35 (which gives me 9 years), I am now shopping for a host and a domain.
It's my one of my numerous creative "projects" for the summer.]

On the other side of Love, Art.
on the other side of this dynamic vicissitude is a frozen image.
Where I am alone, a still spirit, catatonic, with tears ceaselessly flowing,
wings aching and exhausted from the flight, limbs tender and unsure,
the pain of metamorphosis, the pain of living.

In this space the ugly thoughts get trapped in the flypaper. . . .
Dopamine Junkie is a character. Dopamine Junkie is a doppelganger.
Dopamine Junkie is a complementary personality, born of a necessary duplicity.
But it’s just me now.

Strange to face the world alone instead of hand in hand with someone else.
Strange to lack that pillar of strength and stability that was Hugo.
Strange to cry and feel nothing but wetness on my cheeks.

When the ache starts, I fill my time pie.
Must stay in motion. Stop only to chronicle, to sleep and to smoke.

Stepping careful and cautious into new friendships, new relations
Cautious about my weaknesses, my habits, my proclivities.
Cautious about being too hard on myself.

Ugly thoughts this morning:
You’re like a prostitute who never gets paid.

Something hard and unyielding, rigid disciplinarian
Sunday School teacher within,
debasing myself. Erasing myself.

What do I get out of relationships with lovers?
Some fuck for money.
Some fuck for drugs.
Some fuck for free dinners.

I just fuck for sex.
For synergy.
For release.

But it’s hard to snap out of this mindset of anhedonia.
It’s hard to remember how to truly, truly experience pleasure.
Gratification for my own sake.
Without it being caught up, in another pleasure I have confused it with for so long.
Satisfying someone else.

It started with Hugo, and carries on to my new lovers.
Am I satisfying their fantasies? Am I responding appropriately?
Do I look alright?
Is this complex enough to make you believe that I am really here,
here for you, to become the woman you want, the woman you desire?

In the snuggle afterwards, this is where I find any real satisfaction.
The work ethic satiated, a job well done.
He came.
Never mind if I didn’t. Or at least he thought I did.

My hunger to please, stronger than my hunger for pleasure.
Desire, that state of uneasiness, of pleasure longed for, unfulfilled.

******
Boys of My Life. Boys of My Life.
******
Ex-Boy, when he was young and unsculpted, awkward but eager,
wrote me a letter, a snippet of which
I carry with me in my heart:

You needed a place where you could escape, where you could rest.
And me, I’ve been lugging around all this empty space.
I want you to fill it, take whatever you need of me.

This is why our journeys will always be entwined.
Like a train station locker in Amsterdam
I’ll always come back for my stuff.

******
non sequitur
******

I don't speak very often about the last True Love I had.
The First One, the Boy who stole my heart, my dreams,
my imagination, and my virginity.

My most literary lover.
Our conversations are filled with obscure references to
inside jokes, great cinema,
great literature, great comedy,
and to the emo-rock/j pop era of the 90s.

Sample of our conversation:

I am the character FirstLoveMe, and we shall call him CherryPopper.

FirstLoveMe: you're there aren't you cheese?
FirstLoveMe: are you? appears you are.
CherryPopper: Cheese can't write an instant message.
FirstLoveMe: cheese must abhor the instant message medium
CherryPopper: It's far from cheese's forte.
FirstLoveMe: i just got home
CherryPopper: I just sent you an e-mail.
FirstLoveMe: i haven't checked yet
CherryPopper: No hard feelings.
FirstLoveMe: when you lived out here, did you ever hear of/go to a place called asia sf?
CherryPopper: No. It sound a little suspicious.
FirstLoveMe: asian transvestites lip-syncing at a bar/tapas asian fusion place.
CherryPopper: My instincts were again reliable.
FirstLoveMe: i have a few friends, including those of the ambiguous
persuasion, who work there.
CherryPopper: I bet you do.
FirstLoveMe: beautiful wo/men
CherryPopper: Chicks with dicks?
FirstLoveMe: yes
FirstLoveMe: and mad titty
CherryPopper: Styrofoam packing material?
CherryPopper: Corrugated cardboard?
CherryPopper: Double-sided packing tape?
FirstLoveMe: not quite as tittilating.
FirstLoveMe: wait does that have 2 t's?
FirstLoveMe: or 3?
CherryPopper: The former.
CherryPopper: No, sorry, the latter.
FirstLoveMe: okay smartypants: what's the difference
between a plebian and a proletarian?
CherryPopper: Titilating.
FirstLoveMe: nooo
FirstLoveMe: 3 t's then
CherryPopper: Do you mean a "plebeian"?
FirstLoveMe: oh stop
FirstLoveMe: you're not my writing tutor
CherryPopper: I think they are relatively similar in meaning,
but different in connotation.
CherryPopper: You should be so lucky.
FirstLoveMe: i don't need a writing tutor.
FirstLoveMe: aol instant messenger. last bastion of what?
CherryPopper: That's what they all think before I tutor them.
FirstLoveMe: mmhmm.
CherryPopper: Last bastion of bastardization.
FirstLoveMe: so what's an attached guy like you
doing in cyberspace at this hour of the night?
CherryPopper: Well, avoiding bedtime.
FirstLoveMe: because why?
CherryPopper: Because I always hated bedtime.
FirstLoveMe: no you didn't
CherryPopper: Especially bedtime before the beginning of the week.
My weeks now start on Tuesday and end Saturday.
FirstLoveMe: i see
CherryPopper: What do you mean, didn't.
FirstLoveMe: never mind
FirstLoveMe: being fa-ce-tious
CherryPopper: That's what I thought. Nicely spelled.
FirstLoveMe: did I spell that right, Herr Professor?
FirstLoveMe: danke
CherryPopper: Or is that "spelt"?
FirstLoveMe: finished two more Hesse. One last one to go!
CherryPopper: Quantity or quality?
FirstLoveMe: Bof
CherryPopper: Always in excess.
FirstLoveMe: discovering the similar themes in all of them
CherryPopper: I bet you are.
FirstLoveMe: Magic Theater.
FirstLoveMe: For Madmen Only.
CherryPopper: Theatre?
FirstLoveMe: oh la la.
CherryPopper: I love Steppenwolf, especially "Born to be Wild."
CherryPopper: "Head out on the highway!!!"
CherryPopper: Last bastion of Classic Rock.
FirstLoveMe: your essence is lost in this medium
FirstLoveMe: alas.
CherryPopper: You're joking, right?
FirstLoveMe: Joking about what?
CherryPopper: Is my essence that diffuse?
FirstLoveMe: I understand your reference
FirstLoveMe: but something is lost
CherryPopper: Similar in meaning, different in connotation.
FirstLoveMe: about 70% hilarity is lost
CherryPopper: A bad stat.
FirstLoveMe: was hesse gay?
CherryPopper: Is it still funny?
CherryPopper: I don't think he was gay, no, but I'm not sure.
FirstLoveMe: he sure writes a lot about monks kissing monks.
FirstLoveMe: or young wannabe monks kissing other monks
CherryPopper: Hmm.
CherryPopper: Still smarting over loss of hilarity.
FirstLoveMe: i don't think he likes wimmen very much
CherryPopper: Who does?
FirstLoveMe: pobrecito, don't let that stop you!
FirstLoveMe: who likes wimmen?
CherryPopper: Still regretting fading comedy.
FirstLoveMe: it was only that one.
FirstLoveMe: i wish I could remember a funny joke to tell you
FirstLoveMe: i never remember the jokes
FirstLoveMe: only the punchlines
CherryPopper: My favorite Hesse moral: Remember to laugh a lot.
FirstLoveMe: are you sure that wasn't kundera?
CherryPopper: No, no. At the end of Steppenwolf, the gods laugh at him for being so serious.
FirstLoveMe: that's a shitty thing to do.
FirstLoveMe: like any mortal could be so carefree and good-humored
CherryPopper: I thought it was fantastic, because I was taking
the whole thing so seriously, too.
FirstLoveMe: i was esp. surprised by the bloodshed.
CherryPopper: I was thinking, "Oh no, how could he kill her?"
And then they laughed at him and me.
FirstLoveMe: Do you remember what killed Kerouac?
CherryPopper: Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
CherryPopper: Drinking and drugs?
CherryPopper: Lung cancer?
CherryPopper: Not funny enough?
CherryPopper: Not funny in the instant message format?
FirstLoveMe: Heroin is always funny.
CherryPopper: Are you referring to my essay on the subject?
FirstLoveMe: mebbe, mebbe not!
CherryPopper: Mememorme!
CherryPopper: You're still kind of funny in this format, BTW.
FirstLoveMe: did you hear there was a ulysses play?
CherryPopper: That's Finnegan's Wake, not Ulysses.
FirstLoveMe: it probably sucks
FirstLoveMe: nu-uh
FirstLoveMe: mememorme is ulysses!
CherryPopper: Yeah.
CherryPopper: Yeah to both.
FirstLoveMe: why you lie? you don't gots to lie!
CherryPopper: No, it's not, sucka! Born to be wiiiild!!!
FirstLoveMe: this can't really be you.
FirstLoveMe: you are a figment of my imagination
FirstLoveMe: right?
CherryPopper: There are at least two other JG in the United States.
So which one is the real JG?
CherryPopper: Does the real JG like classic rock?
FirstLoveMe: the one who said cheese can't write an instant message
CherryPopper: Is the real JG only a little funny?
CherryPopper: Do the other JG know that line?
FirstLoveMe: he's only funny like a funeral
CherryPopper: I need you to bury me.
CherryPopper: If you don't remind me, I won't forget you.
CherryPopper: I scratch so I won't itch. I reach so I won't miss.
FirstLoveMe: why don't you bury your own self, like Paul?
FirstLoveMe: those aren't aphorisms
CherryPopper: Paul McCartney.
CherryPopper: ?
FirstLoveMe: yeah
CherryPopper: A near miss or a close call?
CherryPopper: I learned to put on airs. I needed them to breathe.
FirstLoveMe: i got to you there was nothing left
CherryPopper: I love that song.
FirstLoveMe: yeah I remember how you love that song
CherryPopper: I thought that was after you.
FirstLoveMe: you flogged me with it
CherryPopper: Oops.
CherryPopper: Now I flog myself only.
FirstLoveMe: your log you mean!
CherryPopper: Leave him out of this.
FirstLoveMe: tee hee
CherryPopper: I could just hear your gleeful giggle before you wrote it.
FirstLoveMe: tee hee hee
FirstLoveMe: i like "flog your log" and "whacking your pud" makes me laugh
CherryPopper: I wish I was like you.
FirstLoveMe: boys masturbation is more funny than girls'
CherryPopper: Easily amused.
CherryPopper: I know, girls' is sometimes too damn sexy to be funny!
FirstLoveMe: i hate people who sign their emails: Cheers,
CherryPopper: If they're British, it's OK.
FirstLoveMe: it's late where you are.
CherryPopper: Indeed.
FirstLoveMe: why are you not cuddling with your anna begins?
CherryPopper: So provocative a question.
CherryPopper: We don't live together. Sometimes I get my stuff and plan ahead.
Sometimes I just stay late, put her to bed and come home.
FirstLoveMe: Jes asking, you don't have to disclose
CherryPopper: Have to have a shirt, tie, pants, etc., and sometimes
don't have the energy to take it all over. That's all, really.
FirstLoveMe: mm
CherryPopper: Not a provocative answer.
CherryPopper: Still sorrowful over unfunniness.
FirstLoveMe: do you think I am crasy?
CherryPopper: Yes. Sometimes in a good way, though.
FirstLoveMe: like mebbe 35% sometimes in a good way.
FirstLoveMe: sometimes I wonder if I have a Jewish temperment
CherryPopper: Nah. 35 percent in a bad way.
CherryPopper: Don't know what Jewish temperament is.
CherryPopper: Jewish humor, often.
FirstLoveMe: are you old?
FirstLoveMe: i'm still a kid
CherryPopper: I am 26.
CherryPopper: You used to call me "old man" when I was 17!
FirstLoveMe: i know. because you were.
CherryPopper: In some ways.
FirstLoveMe: which is why I wonder if you are even older
CherryPopper: But not all, in my opinion.
FirstLoveMe: guess what?
CherryPopper: I think I am old in good ways.
FirstLoveMe: it's too morbid a thought, never mind. don't guess,
CherryPopper: But if I don't guess, your defense mechanism of
constantly changing the subject won't work!
FirstLoveMe: I'm raging against the dying of the light!
CherryPopper: A nonsequitur?
FirstLoveMe: that's two words, boy wonder
CherryPopper: You're just jealous.
CherryPopper: But correct.
FirstLoveMe: and so what if I am jealous?
CherryPopper: I would be flattered if you were.
CherryPopper: Jealous of an old man?
CherryPopper: I grow old. I grow old. I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
FirstLoveMe: i have no wish to enter dangerous territory, sir
FirstLoveMe: sylvette is at home alone with me
CherryPopper: I don't know what you mean. Really.
FirstLoveMe: about what?
CherryPopper: Dangerous territory.
CherryPopper: Is Sylvette a picture?
CherryPopper: Barely remember.
FirstLoveMe: you don't remember the Picasso you gave me
CherryPopper: Mememorme.
CherryPopper: !
CherryPopper: Is she blue?
CherryPopper: Or just sad-looking?
FirstLoveMe: she's black and white and very "angular" as Dieter might say
CherryPopper: Really sad?
CherryPopper: Or just maladjusted?
FirstLoveMe: lost in flux
CherryPopper: I remember getting you a painting that fit you perfectly,
and that you liked it a lot. But the rest is hazy, for I grow old.
CherryPopper: Trousers rolled.
FirstLoveMe: speaking of flux, do you like aeon flux?
CherryPopper: Sort of.
FirstLoveMe: if i could have her and bjork as my best friends,
I would be so happy.
CherryPopper: Did you say you're alone?
FirstLoveMe: and I would kidnap natalie portman and watch her pretty
eyes fill up with tears and make her my best friend too
FirstLoveMe: yes I am
CherryPopper: Where's Hugo?
FirstLoveMe: probably fucking some girl
CherryPopper: Talk about dangerous territory!
FirstLoveMe: no that's not fair. he's out with a girl I don't know.
CherryPopper: Sorry.
FirstLoveMe: not home yet, nor am I permitted to ask
when he's coming home, or where they went
FirstLoveMe: so it's like that
CherryPopper: Raymond Chandler, as Marlowe:
"There is no trap so dangerous as the one you set for yourself."
FirstLoveMe: thanks so much for that inspirational
quote, it's almost like chicken soup to my soul.
CherryPopper: No need to take it out on me, kid.
CherryPopper: I didn't set this one.
FirstLoveMe: i'm too cynical these days for endless platitudes
FirstLoveMe: Sorry
CherryPopper: You think you're cynical, huh?
CherryPopper: Now who's the old man?
FirstLoveMe: a lot of times I wish I were a man and I had a penis.
CherryPopper: So you say you want a revolution?
FirstLoveMe: so I could beat my meat!
CherryPopper: I think Freud figured that one out a long time ago,
or else I'd tell you to write a book about that.
FirstLoveMe: I jes wanna beat my meat!
FirstLoveMe: what movie is that from?
CherryPopper: You are intrigued by the idea of meat-beating?
CherryPopper: Dunno.
FirstLoveMe: I shot Andy Warhol. Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas.
CherryPopper: Didn't see it.
CherryPopper: I am familiar with the sentiment, though.
FirstLoveMe: An update: so now I am in that desperate state of
growing hysteria of clock-watching.
CherryPopper: I'm sorry.
CherryPopper: The gods are laughing.
FirstLoveMe: Not your problem
FirstLoveMe: at me?
CherryPopper: Both of us.
FirstLoveMe: denouement?
CherryPopper: Did I use it to your liking?
FirstLoveMe: always
CherryPopper: Good.
FirstLoveMe: I'll leave you to your sleep now? You seem sleepy.
FirstLoveMe: falling asleep on the phone.
CherryPopper: I remember.
FirstLoveMe: mememorme
CherryPopper: You OK for now?
FirstLoveMe: ya.
CherryPopper: Good night, Rosasharn.
FirstLoveMe: I'll be alright. smoke a bowl, take a pill, go to sleep.
FirstLoveMe: I'm tard Pa.
CherryPopper: Te quiero mucho, baby.
FirstLoveMe: Yo tambien. Hasta luego


A man who can use the word denouement in a sentence without hesitation. Mm. yes sexy.

******

Letters every other morning from a Hugo in mourning.
Every morning at my desk, coffee in hand, door closed to the
enormous office I will occupy alone, the tears come.
Starting off my action items list with an emotional catharsis.

>I would like to find that special friendship we had;
it won't happen tomorrow for many reasons.
My thoughts are with you during this purging period.
I once saw you fly on top of twin peaks: you were in love.
>
And I weep uncontrollably, the poignance I have not heard from him in so
long piercing through my shields.
If we could have only loved each other . . .better, more. . . who knows?

He and I, are not accustomed to failure in any arena.

*****

(Friday morning)

Sometimes the young Pyromaniac can twist me right with a crinkle of an eye,
the slightest betrayal of a smile. That little crack in the skillfully played fantasy
between consenting adults, that’s the bunny rabbit in the teen twat spread,
the impetus to push me over the top. . .

With him I play out the childhood I never had but always wished to have.
We are 2 of so many grown-ups out there, who are really children who
had to grow up too soon, who didn’t, for whatever repressed, abused or traumatic
reasons of life’s hardship, were robbed of the pleasure of innocent childhood discovery.

*******

(Thursday)

Sigh. Wistful. Dreamily remembering fuck faces looming above me.
Making me smile, want, laugh.

My own face in the throes of passion I have no picture of.

I can’t reconcile the sad still girl in the mirror with the girl
whose legs are being arranged according to her lover’s pleasure;
whose mouth is being filled with dick;
whose cries echo through the neighborhood as she rides.

What I can see if the shower of little exploding points of light shooting
towards me as the orgasm is being strangled out of my bated breath;
I can feel the pain of my teeth biting down hard on my lip as I savor
each slick and filling stroke.
I don’t know my face, as I’m being stabbed in my sweet center with a hot meat Pole.
But I do remember, the vibrations of the grunts and moans echoing in my chest,
rolling in my throat.

*****

Dopamine Junkie.
Packet Junkie.
Information Junkie.

Fleshy sentient mass I am, strapped to the earth and addicted to stimulus.
Some prefer physical exercise for the endorphin fix.
That’s not really my gig.

Alone in my room I lie in my nest
Curled in a fetal position
2 6 ft body pillow flanking me

The body goes to rest
but the spirit awakes and takes her place
Takes up where she left off last night
Stepping gracefully onto the grid

She breathes in, information stimulus
The nectar of choice packets
Breathes out, a synthesized dream
A pathway for me
A map to find you

And here I am.

Jonesing for a fix.
That fire in my synapse.
Arresting and Soothing to mine eye.
Heady and fragrant in aroma.
Consonance, Dissonance.
Smooth Silky Firm Tender.
The tender chords of my senses strumming, humming, cumming.

The days offline I spent are my decompression chamber
A cleansing sensory deprivation tabula rasa.

Except for that other sensation.
Which is the lack.
Tu me manques.
Te extrano.
The longing, the void.
If I become a part of your consciousness,
of your thoughts, or a small part of your life
(at present)
and I am gone.
Do you notice, do you care, if I’m not around?

You’re used to instant gratification.
Choice packets from random search queries.
Shift reload is there something new?
You’re used to the almost telepathic instant messages.
Or emails that take one minute to cross the earth.
Jpegs of me at your fingertips, instead of the dog-eared photo in your wallet.

I miss the missing, do you miss it too?
Modern love lacks longing and suffers
From the depth of love that downtime brings?

Virtual infidelity
a streaming media conscience
evaporating with each play.

Life online is still real life.
It doesn’t shut down or suspend.

********
You found me.