Leitmotif

This one is about you kid, and if you're not ready for it, you shouldn't read it.   


  anyone who's a drinker knows that when you cut back, when you stop drinking, you also stop sleeping. it was a late Thursday night in mid-March and i came home to lock myself in with the books. i was getting itchy, eyeballing that bottle of whiskey on my desk, thinking maybe i'd just have one, maybe i'd write something, maybe just a night cap. i decided to eat instead, and god knows, the only place available at a time like this is Denny's. i invited someone to come out with me, but i knew they wouldn't, but extended the invitation out of courtesy. this person had been a thorn in my side for a very long time since we stopped seeing each other. but i was forced to see them a couple days a week and for the sake of the workplace i had to make an effort to be "nice". i won't go into details about this person, but only say that she came the closest anyone has in a very long time. It's better i keep my silence about matters of the heart.
     But as soon as i got in the car, i didn't feel much like eating anymore. i turned the big beast around and started heading for the hills. The 2 north is a fantastic freeway to drive on at night. no cops, no cars, just wide open road and the wind blowing in through the cracks in my windows. Taking the 210 West towards Sylmar, i began shuffling through my cd's for some good music to make me feel better about everything that had been going down in the last couple of months. Finally i settled on Dredg - Leitmotif.
     I began thinking about the things that made me feel bad in life... people... mostly people are the cause for agony on my side. I could get a flat tire, total my car, cut my fingers at work and have pretty much anything happen to me and i usually go on with a sunny disposition. But when i put trust and become kind to people, they usually find a way to manipulate that and turn it into something that feeds their own personal agenda. (not all people are like this though, i have two good friends who feel the same way i do, maybe that's why we bond?)  little by little i feel my faith in humanity slipping away, and it's being replaced with solitude and lonely midnight adventures into unknown places for the sake of keeping my sanity. If no one is near me, then there's no way for them to cause any kind of harm. Maybe I'm destined to be alone? that's too much to think about at a time like this. i was gunning the gas and hearing the symphony play over distorted guitars. 
     There weren't many drivers out, only big trucks headed towards depots somewhere. i started thinking about the time i was driving down from San Francisco with my ex-girlfriend and it brought a smile to my face. it was early morning, and the sun was just beginning to come up. i felt myself getting horny and i didn't have the heart to wake her from slumber so i could get off. so i decided the best thing to do was to take her hand and wrap it around my cock and have her jack me off while i drove. all this while she was asleep. at first her hand was a bit cold, but i tightened the grip a bit and with just a little bit of spit on my part, i was well on my way to blowing my load. She didn't even stir a bit as i was doing this. passing large semi trucks, i wondered if those drivers were looking out the window and saw this girl, asleep, in a little red Toyota Corolla as her hand was wrapped around some guys junk?
     Before i knew it i was on the 5 North headed for Castaic lake. i began climbing that huge hill and then thoughts of camping came to mind. i felt myself getting too close to certain people, so leaving town for a week and heading for desolate grounds seemed like a good idea. i was out there a couple of days, and just beginning to feel comfortable with being alone when Shannon showed up. She got out of her car wearing only lingerie and it definitely brought a smile to my face. i was scared also. i thought to myself, "here we go again man, you're falling for this girl and you know she'll never take it anywhere with you."  But i said fuck it and went with it anyway. At first, i thought of Shannon as a great and exciting new person. something fresh from all the bad women i had in my life. relationships are easy at first, before the small faults and cracks start to shine through. she was the first one i accepted totally and completely. Sure there were things that annoyed me and sometimes i just wanted to walk away from her in the middle of a conversation, but there were other things there too. What those things were, i'm not sure. i don't know what they were, i felt it inside. i don't know if she did, and if she did feel it as well, she's a more brilliant liar than me and can hide emotions better than anyone i know. I dislike her now. The reasoning isn't because of the fact that we can't pursue something, although i have to admit for my part i gave her plenty of space to move around. The thing that bothers me most is that i would confront her about things that i knew were absolutely true and she would just lie to me. If there's one thing that really pisses me off is when someone thinks they can fool me. That's the main reason i feel so angry towards her. She deceived and lied about almost everything, and in the end, the truth came out and i was right about it. Shannon went so far as to copy one of my poems, not directly, but some of the lines i wrote were in her work, and when i asked her about it, yup, you guessed it, she lied about that too. So i feel justified in every right to be angry towards her. Eventually, that anger started eating away at me inside so i had to think long and hard about it. The truth of the matter is, she has no idea she's doing it half the time. Shannon doesn't realize that those small things she does, maybe done out of a good heart, hurt more than if she were just to be a bad person up front. That's what i always enjoyed about the girls at the bar, they didn't put on like they were nice girls looking for a husband. They starred at you, you starred at them, you both knew what you wanted and you went for it. The nice ones always scare me, because without knowing it, they are the baddest people around. They just don't see it. Ignorance is bliss. I wish i wasn't so judgmental of people, that  might make for a better quality of life on my part. Anyway, one day i woke  up and decided to just let it go, because if she very well doesn't know that her actions are causing harm, and my words are damaging to her ego, i might as well just keep my mouth shut and let her live life the way she sees fit. who am i to offer my insight? Not like anyone wants to listen to the asshole tell them about how bad of a person they are. Everything i say is just damaging to her anyway, so in an effort to prevent any more harm, i stopped being a dick. Now i just smile and wave, pretend that everything is okay.
     As i was reaching the top of the hill, near the old campsite exit, i sang the words to the song aloud.

questioning, and saying
our opinions, they're failing
they're constantly changing
our ignorance, remaining
we're hoping, and waiting
we're living, but dying
while trying to find out
my meaning isn't planned out
come to the conclusion
might as well be an illusion
while trying to find out
i did nothing, but shut out 

     Lietmotif is a reoccurring theme in music. I felt as though by letting people get to me, strike me down, make me feel bad, it was only damaging to myself. while others will always continue with their same behavior, i can't  expect people to be honest. They have their own reasons for what happens and i very well am no one to judge them. I wonder what happened to me? usually if i didn't feel right in a situation i would get up and leave. Suddenly the life was sucked out of me and i just sat there fuming instead of actually acting on what my gut was telling me to do. i was a much happier person then, because if the situation didn't feel right i would walk out the door and head straight for wherever was anywhere but the last place i was at. i began to fight more instead of fleeing and maybe fleeing in itself isn't a good thing either. People are fucking goofy man, they do some weird shit, sometimes i wish i could see the logic they use to figure situations out. i wonder if there's a monkey playing the harmonica on a unicycle floating around in their head? i feel as though what's happening is that i'm growing this thicker skin, and i'll be able to tolerate more people as time goes by, but inside i'll always be yelling at myself about most of it. For now, i'm forced to do the right things to make everything gel between me and Shannon. I've got no choice. And maybe one day she'll figure it out, see what's happened here, realize that my behavior towards her is only a reflection of her behavior towards me. but in the end, who really wins with all that bullshit? nobody. It's up to me to be the better man and burry the hatchet, and no matter what kind of small things she throws at me, i've got to let them bounce off into space. It's not worth the headache to be pissed at someone who has no idea what they're doing. wasted energy. She'll be fine. As will i. 

i have to.