Drew in Zombieland

In my attempt to be more social
I went to a Bondage Club last Saturday. My first time
in one and all of my assumptions are changed, all my misconceptions
undone and the tables turned on who is healthy and who is sick.

There were people exploring the things we all hide from in
the open. They were communicating and listening to one another.
There was a family of people dedicated to each other’s safety
and well being. All the while the exploration of sexuality and
sensuality went on in an ordered, well mannered fashion.

But these people aren’t there to just get their rocks off,
these people are redefining what caring and sharing are all about.
One woman was shackled to a cross-bar, hanging naked as
another man behind, carefully whipped her. Her partner stood in front
and watched for any sign of her wanting to stop.
But she didn’t and the well-trained whipper gave her the sensation
she was looking for…with her permission and on her terms.

This was not the dominatrix clubs that our society routinely
judges as ‘dirty’ or ‘deviant’. This was a place where people were
respecting one another, sharing experiences and exploring
human sexuality as a fact and not as repressed ignorance.

I think I’ll go back often but not because I want be whipped,
I think I just like to be around mature, communicative people.
That sounds good, huh?

Well, that’s one attempt to be more social!

Wind is puffing
and the sky turned
black in another happy
day at the bottom
of the well. I howl
at the sky and it drags
you across
the yard like a rag
doll. Someone gets
water and I spring
from the bucket
just in time to pull
you from the funnel
but your pummeled
and bloody, your eyes
puffed up and black.
I shake my fist
at the clouds
and curse the sky
to buy and work
the sun.

I like it here
at the bottom
of the well. The bricks
are cold and green.
I find a secret passage
that leads
to a cavern where
men board windows
in haste for their underground storm.
I drag you home
and you mutter
something in Russian
then crawl back to the well. You said
you liked it there.

The water in the well is old
and green but slides
down my throat.
I pour some down
you and you gulp
bubbles. A cramp and you double
over. That’s when
you found your own secret
passageway. I want
to follow but the men
boarding the windows
make me work. I sweat
into a papercup. I never
saw you again but knew
that there was always
another well, another secret
passage and always more storms.

Imagine if you turned down the volume on your emotions. There would be no bombastic, exaggerated happiness yet, at the same time, no wallowing in the sadness of the lows. You would live in the middle ground of mellow and consistent, a ‘roll with the punches’ attitude dominating your life.

Some big football star once said that he never let himself get too up or too down, and that helped him compete in that he was always ready for the next play cause he wasn’t stuck in the past play. I think it was Joe Montana but I am not going to research it because it is an old idea and one that has been shared by many.

And the thing is, staying in the moment is the hardest thing I have ever attempted.

I mean, really staying in the moment.

I was an ‘anticipator’ when I was growing up. A state common to children of the seventies, children that grew up in the schizoid family structure of the baby boomers and especially common in families of divorce, alcholics, work-a-holics, etc…

Anticipators or ‘the good kid’ always had to be a few steps ahead of their parnets at all times to anticipate their skewed demands, their volatile eruptions and to be seen as the good kid when all goes wrong (in these households, it always went wrong).

Anticipating something is being in the future through evaluating the past. The Anticipator is never in the now. They never feel what is going on now. They are stuck in their heads, trying to do their best on what’s to come.

What it took for me to learn to stay here and now was harder than quitting smoking, quitting drinking - It was and is still a daily battle to stay present while things are zinging at you that trigger unconscious reactions that send you quickly into the future or past.

I battle this hourly.

I disassociate constantly. If you see a blank look on my face, I’m down the road in furtureland.

I am an anticipator-

and that’s the difference between me then, and me know:

It takes me much less time to get over some feeling, some emotion than
it was before I got ‘better’. My new skills make what seemed like an
overwhelming situation, much more managable.

Now, that doesn’t solve the fact that I took something innocent and made
it turn into ‘me getting rejected’.

That never happened. That was my imagination,
that was my old school self making things just like they have been
all my life. I seek rejection and find it wherever I can.

That’s a hard one to get out of.

It’s not about trying to stop the depression
it’s about how quickly one gets out.

I woke up four years ago.
quit alcohol and cigs
broke up with my girlfriend
and started a very comprehensive therapy
that teaches the person the things they never were taught.

Why? Cause as I got older (37), inside I was an
emotional cripple, a child
that looks for ways to feel rejection and sadness-
a sadness addict that never progressed.

Now, four years later, four long years,
four years of no outside love
no physical touch, I am ready for love.
I need love. I am better and ready.

But of course the old stuff still lurks and trips me up.

Still picking unavailable people, only now I know when it happens.
And now I have to stop, where as before I would hang on. This
is progress, I have to move on.

But it still hurts. I still feel like dying.
cause this person is with someone else.

Dammit old ways, you will change!

I’m better than this!
C’mon me!

You can do this, Me! You can be patient, you will be happy!
Be patient, have fun, let go. This is not the end of the world!

I know you can!

I know you can!

Screw all this.
Screw expression, screw writing
screw my emotions, my fears
and my inability to be with another person.

Screw the fact that I only like unavailable people.
Screw the fact that my heart breaks when you look at it the wrong way.
Screw these emotions. Screw my life.

And the hell with love. I just can’t get it right.
and my patience is thin
after 4 years of no love
no touch
no emotion
I am ready to pop.

Fuck you to my parents that taught me nothing
Fuck you to the way they abused me, ignored me
and used me like an adult version of a mental slave.

FUCK YOU WORLD

I don’t have to be alone anymore
I don’t have to be afraid anymore
I feel my own love-

convinced?

Staying in the ‘Now’ is probably my most subtle
and most dramatic fight. I can project (protect) myself
to anticipate what is coming so easily that it has
always been second nature to race into the future.

Even now as I write this and am depressed about
something entirely unrelated, I struggle to stay with this
writing, this narrative and find myself having to stop
and come back to where I had just left off…

And it has been called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
or just brushed off as the MTV Generation but I know that
that is too easy. I watch my friends that I know are like this
and can see the same thing as we talk and hit a ‘touchy’

subject, I watch them floating down the mental ’street’
and wanna grab them and shake them and yell ’stay here’!
But I can’t fix them and I am usually off in the other mental
‘direction’ running away. Talk about 2 people not connecting…

And where is this that I am going? It’s important to realize where
I am going. To anticipate something that may or may not happen
and to waste my mental energy on something that is so far away from
the beauty going on around me…

In therapy (going on 3 years) my therapist and I are keenly aware
of this running away and address it as it happens. She will let me go and
ask me where I am to understand where I go…but she also let’s me bring
myself back to get into the habit of fixing it myself. I know most of the

‘keys’ that result in me running off in my mind and have kinda been
able to learn to stay present most of the time. But even just writing this
passage, I find myself anticipating my morning, the day ahead,
this week! And so I stop and start breathing, recognizing what’s going on

and I’m back, but for how long?

years of being alone for the wrong reasons
time spent healing is not time, it’s not measurable
loneliness is palpable, hunger of the soul that wakes up
oozing potential for coupling, then you signal the world with intent

I apologize in advance to those hit
by the power and purpose, the intent of my mind to find
a mate or mates or even a small kiss on the lips…
It’s a tractor-beam like pull and a bull/china like temper.

Waking up from missed-potential
and redirecting that energy. did that with writng
and the same results as expected were met.

See, this is outloud…

perception
and the power of thought
creating reality
how is matter created
and last but not least
eyesight

1. generous in forgiving an insult or injury; free from petty resentfulness or vindictiveness: to be magnanimous toward one’s enemies.
2. high-minded; noble: a just and magnanimous ruler.
3. proceeding from or revealing generosity or nobility of mind, character, etc.: a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness.

Are you having a party? Invite them all.
Are you going somewhere with friends? Invite that lonely guy that just moved to town.

There’s always enough room.
There’s always enough food.
There’s always more where that came from.

And this is why there is no need for us to be so greedy.

There’s plenty to go around-
And what goes around always comes back around.

So give-
and receive…