…That Coat Hitler Gave You On Your Birthday
April 8th, 2006 by Adam
There is naïveté in everything we do in this life. As simple beings there are endless obstacles that block our path to enlightenment—trust or mistrust, good or bad memories, false hope, apathy, faith, fear. We prepare for nothing new, content to deconstruct and rehash the old under sad auspices of curiosity and perfectionism. These are the drives that make us crazy— that keep us on long, lonely drives in the middle of the night while rain assaults the windshield. One day I woke up and realized I had become attuned to psychiatrists who refuse to stop their own bad habits– empathetic, but only as empathetic as you would imagine a person to be when they don’t give a shit. I dug for so long that my hands hurt, constantly being dragged down by spite, malice, and sloth. Growing wings was a saving grace. The hole is shallower today, but a hole nonetheless.
So why was I fool enough to I think it was a good idea to start anew with something old? Why is everyone getting married or burying their hurt, pretending need away because change is harder than sleeping pills, sex, or ice cream? How did “can’t wait to see you” become “can’t see you” and “miss you” become “sorry I missed you”? Why am I going to lunch with long-distance lovers I’ll never have at arms length and coffee shops with women whose break-up etiquette is more atrocious than the Enola Gay’s? Why do I hide all day, ducking an intensity that pelts with me rocks whether I ignore or confront it? We misplace our anger and throw malfeasance at certain accents, certain archetypes, certain symbols of our own decay. We fear loss and danger and confusion. We speak of a need for clarity and truth without a desire for honesty. Truth is nothing but an affirmation of what we already know, and meanwhile days are collapsing into desktops and pillowcases. Meanwhile our chances are dissolving in the rain and we resign ourselves to wealthy architects, meaningless sex or bitter silence because love is the new four letter word— the emotional slur that keeps us disconnected and sitting on the feet of women we could have married if we weren’t raised to believe that everything in this world is for sale—even foresight.
We shouldn’t feel this way in the presence of so-called loved ones, constantly denigrated and exasperated, resentful to the point where our forks shake and our daughters hide in the church cellar because even animals know that doorways are safer than windowsills when the hurricane comes. This is the reality we flee for a few weeks at a time to tiny, faraway towns where our days are absorbed in contemplation and disbelief that it’s so much simpler to be on the road, not writing make up poems for missed birthdays, not straining silences where words existed 8,000 miles before. In a sign of our perpetual naïveté we actually believed that everything would be better when we returned, too sedated to see that ‘better’ comes from inside, if it comes at all, and until the entire city disperses for a season or two, the maelstrom will remain. You get better at ducking, but you never escape.
I love you all but you’re fucking insane, and you make me insane too.
Adam