the hungry

It is a living thing. I starved it, when I said I would write, but didn't. No thoughts to words for years, I would only sometimes pause on this little notebook of penned titles. Titles of unwritten stories in fading ink will soon be forgotten.

But today I thought about it for the first time in what felt like forever, in the odd few minutes between drudge-work. What a relief. What unbidden release. It was starving, but not dead; withered, but surviving.

I fed it Thai music, and it stirred. I felt its hunger. It swallowed the melody, the unintelligible emotions, and the yearning. It wanted more, so I tossed it a quote: "Drink from the well of yourself and begin again." 

More, it said again. This was Bukowski's quote, from a poem. Bukowski wrote about dirty realism, and transgressive fiction.

Keep going. Wouldn't that titled story fit Bukowski's style? That story would write itself. Add a note about a Thai OST.

Good, keep it coming. And remember: "Don't try." 

Photo Credit: Mixed race man holding fork and knife at table
BGM: "แค่เพื่อนมั้ง" (Just Friend?) by Nanon Korapat

If Gravity is Falling

I figured I fell for you eventually. Like gravity's ebb, that pulls slightly with decreasing distance and increasing urgency. But I doubted at first. I was used to that kind of romance that jerks your heart--the ones in movies, the ones I get teary-eyed about.

It's been, what, 2 years now, or 3? I'll have to check our first message on the phone for the date. It doesn't come so easily to me, forgetful though I am, I think it's more to do with how un-unique the "event" was. How extremely natural I felt when I met you and chose to be with you. There was no need to celebrate such a mundane occasion as the clearing of skies or the twinkling of stars. 

This is the order of nature, I figured, and all of my existence is bounded and is bound to this. Like the ebb of the sea and the rising of the tides, this love is the ocean where, you, the moon of my desire, holds sway.

And by the way, if you've seen Boys in the Band, this is the phone call.

Photo Credit: close up of huge, green and mighty sea wave crashes on sandy beach and break at night in full moon light

BGM: "Alone Together" by Chet Baker