"CalLing Card"

MM.

I distinctly remember telling myself, "If you want it, take it" though just as so many young men often do, I was guilty of spurting out nonsensical talk that I knew nothing of. Through my elaborate visions, I had made for myself a fantastical illusion that had flown me into the highest peaks of the heaven, only to then allow me to fall into the farthest depths of hell.

I took it, I took MM today and like a naive doe stuck within the headlights of an oncoming train I find myself praying to God for salvation. I find myself harkening back to the fall of man, to the first temptation of Eve only to realize that I have fallen into a trap that has been marked from the dawn of time - a trap as old as humanity and as fresh as each passing generation, the trap of sex. I suddenly understand the wisdom that so many had tried to pass on, the wisdom that is impossible to teach, but rather must be learnt through cold bitter experience...

So says the poet,

"My child, be attentive to my wisdom, pay close attention to my understanding, in order to safeguard discretion, and that your lips may guard knowledge. For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her seductive words are smoother than olive oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave. Lest she should make level the path leading to life, her paths are unstable but she does not know it. So now, children, listen to me; do not turn aside from the words I speak. Keep yourself far from her, and do not go near the door of her house, lest you give your vigor to others and your years to a cruel person, lest strangers devour your strength, and your labor benefit another man’s house. And at the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are wasted away. And you will say, “How I hated discipline! My heart spurned reproof! For I did not obey my teachers and I did not heed my instructors. I almost came to complete ruin in the midst of the whole congregation!” - Proverbs 5:1-14

Life is a hard teacher, though without a doubt life has taught me the lesson of a lifetime - the lesson of sex, the lesson of redemption, the lesson of falling into complete oblivion.

As I walked out of her apartment I couldn't help feel that I had just made a trade, I had traded myself for a cheap handmade mug that bore the name of MM - a calling card. An object that would forever mark that MM was here, MM had done this, and MM had left her business card. I stared into the elaborate font that marked her name upon the bottom of the mug only to feel that the name might as well be marked within my very skin, that instead of marking it into the cheap mug she should have been sound about it and scratched it into my flesh with her burning nails. She should have torn away at my flesh and carved it into my soul so the physical scars would bare testament to the spiritual scars of fear and disdain.

...Though in the end I am merely left with an a plain unwanted mug...

"Alright see-ya later. Adios."

"You can't leave the bread sit out"

[Silence]

"This isn't store bought bread."

[Silence]

"It doesn't have all those preservatives."

[Silence]

"It will get moldy."

[Silence]

Is life nothing but a series of mindless elaborations that go on and on and on with no purpose so that at the end of the day we so eloquently state that life is, "...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?"

So as the last day of the semester looms over my head, and with it the last day of traditional schooling, I’m tempted to ask myself whether or not I’ve seen all that life has to offer. Distraught, I ask myself "Is this how it is? Fixing the car when it breaks down? Going to work forty-hours a week? Checking an empty email inbox day after day in hopes that something will change? Doing laundry and preparing food to sustain me one more day in this vicious cycle of repetition that never ceases to end?" In asking these question I’m overtaken by a prophetic vision in which I’m led to the center of my town, the town I’ve spent endless summers driving through, only to have a masked visionary figure state "This is life", whereas I respond back in a puzzling tone stating, "WTF, this is only [My Town]."

Forgive me, though I fail to see the point. Maybe I feel this way because it’s the end of the semester, which always leaves me distraught, or perhaps it’s because I watched Ashley walk out of my life today. Ashley, her friend, and I all stood outside of the restaurant where we ate on a daily basis in that momentary awkward silence when I casually stated, "Alright see-ya later. Adios." in my traditional callous fashion - pretty smooth, wouldn't you say? In response, I’m tempted to call her up and state how much I will miss her, how much I care for her, and that I want my existence to revolve around her - that I would do anything for her and that I want a relationship in which we are completely inseparable so that our existences are so intertwined that it will be impossible for us to be defined individually...but...

...I already tried that once, and it didn't change anything. Instead of going on with that rant, I listened to her as she stated more news about her ex-boyfriend and his plans to return. I would wager to say there are many cruel acts in this world, many images that all of us would love to forget, though I would say none is as cruel as a woman dwelling on her past boyfriend in the presence of a man who absolutely adores her.

In my moment of hesitation, I am immediately drawn back to a previous moment in my life where I suffered from a brief bout of insomnia. I lived in an apartment complex where the tenet above me would play his music just loud enough so that I could make out the rhythmic notes of the bass, which in turn would keep me up all night long. After the third straight night of sleeplessness I broke down (I cannot function without 8 hours of sleep, let alone three days) and laid out on the bathroom floor praying to God that the sound would subside so that I could get some sleep. I remember thinking that as someone takes your sleep, they take all that you have as they leave you in that dreamlike state where you cannot function, cannot think, and cannot live but merely exist as a mindless puppet that can do nothing more than feel pain.

In that tragic moment of seeing myself wrapped up in my hoodie laying out on the bathroom floor, I’m immediately drawn to a parallel between then and now where the same distinct pain seems to linger in both rooms with no end in sight. They say that time heals all wounds…

…that’s what they say anyways…