"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost
The concepts of right and wrong are, by their very nature, arbitrary. There is nothing in life which can be concretely defined by the limitations imposed by dealing solely with the strident diatribe of black or white. Gray is the color that rules the day. It's the reason a point can always be argued both ways, and usually is, to the point of tedium and beyond. Someone always thinks they're right, which means someone has to be wrong. It's the balance of things. It's a fucked up balance, but one we try and keep in order to maintain some semblance of society. These concepts, in particular, depend not so much on a point of view, but on a state of mind. In the end, perception is all that counts because, in the end, perception is all there is. The tricky thing about perception is that it's all subjective; it's all a matter of opinion, and it can all change in the blink of an eye so that right and wrong and good and bad, get lost in the shuffle of creating your particular truth. Not "the truth," but your interpretation of it - a truth that's defined, not so much by reality, but by your concept of what's workable in your universe. The truth gets bastardized until it's worth little to nothing in the grand scheme of things. Who you are gets dictated not so much by action, but by the interpretation of said action. The rest of your time gets spent justifying what you've done or haven't done, not only to the people caught up in your particular universe or the world in general, but also to yourself, specifically.
When all is said and done, doesn't the end justify the means? //Sweet indulgence. Intricate and delicate lie.//
This is the question we ask ourselves, when we need to justify the answer we've come up with, when what we know to be the right thing conflicts with self-interest, when what we perceive to be the truth collides head on with the unmovable reality of "the truth" and we need to subvert it. The mind is a fascinating thing. It can convince us that black is white, and day is night if we allow it to. It can convince the heart to go against its better judgment if it means survival. On some level, it always means survival. Hell, it can do this over far lesser entanglements. All it needs is the proper motivation and enough time. Motivation can be found in the smallest of things, but time is something else altogether. Like the unwavering truth, time is neither perceived, nor subjective; it simply is. It lumbers on with no notice or regard of those it leaves in its massive wake. We are neither forethought nor afterthought; we are just collateral damage. It's only we minions who seem to think we can bend time to our will, that we can change its mighty course forward, back, or sideways to add or detract from our lives or to someone else's. It's only we small, inconsequential beings who think we can move the unmovable, shake the unshakeable, or conquer the unconquerable. It's only we, in our peevish opposition, in our arrogance, who seek to defy time, to pervert its purpose, to dominate its will. And it is we, in the end, who are beaten back by it, laid waste, and left alone, shivering in the cold of eternity, subservient forever to its will.
"I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
Robert Frost
"I've fallen through the looking glass."
Ben Bruckner
I've tried to live my life a certain way. I've tried to be a good man, to see things from other people's points of view. I've tried to understand, to be content with what I know, to adjust to what my life has become - to what it will become. I've tried...I've tried. God or whatever power that governs the universe knows I've tried, but when those words hit the air... when I heard that Paul was dead - "The Paul." "My Paul" - all of my reasoning abilities and all my good intentions went flying out the window like leaves once the wind gets to them. I couldn't wrap my brain around it, the enormity of it, the utter unbelievability of it.
I knew that when it finally happened, there would be a sense of loss. After all, I shared my life with him, I shared my bed with him, and I shared my body with him. //Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly. Stabbing pain. Shudder. Recover.// At one point, I thought we'd be together forever. Stupid sentimentality, but, at the time, as real as the sun rising in the morning. It was just something I took for granted. I loved him, but time and circumstance change things, perceptions become skewed, and reality takes on a more fluid representation. Love could survive anything. I was invincible. I was going to live forever, or so I thought. I was wrong. I was so completely wrong about a great many things.
The anger, however, took me completely by surprise. I wanted to scream my fucking head off. I wanted to hit something - anything. I wanted to run until I'd exhausted myself - to run until there was no memory left of what I knew to be so unbearably true. I wanted to escape - to fly out of my body and be nothing. Instead, I got some weed to numb the pain. //Silenced slightly, but aching.// I tried to lose myself in its fogged stench and the night air.
Michael kept me here, but I turned away from him. I turned away from him for no other reason than, at the time, his love was too much, too all consuming, and too powerful, making it too painful to tolerate. Because I know someday it'll be him sitting somewhere trying to escape what he knows to be true. The difference is that he'll have stayed with me through it all. //Another sharp pain. Focus. Please.// And maybe that was part of my anger. No, it WAS part of my anger. Paul didn't even let me know he was sick, so the last time I saw him, through an angry haze at my ill-fated birthday party, was the last time I saw him. I kept meaning to call him but life is what happens while you're making plans. Paul was a reminder, but Michael had become my grand passion. I wanted this part of my life to touch him as little as possible, so Paul kept getting put off. Calling him in a few days became a week, weeks turned into months, and now that call has been put off forever.
Paul had robbed me of the chance to say goodbye to him, to hold him one last time, to show him I was going to be all right, that part of me still loved him, and would always love him. But that's only part of it, because he's robbed me of so much more and I helped him do it. I was a willing participant in my own destruction. I look at Michael sometimes and feel that theft so acutely there's a physical pain that occurs with breathing. I want to take him in my arms sometimes and hold him close to me and run away as far and as fast as I can. So far and so fast that it obliterates everything that's come before it. Obliterated by distance and a perversion of time that negates the mistakes that went before and leaves nothing but who we are when we're alone together and intact. I want to cling to him and be all we'll never be to each other. //the woods are lovely dark and deep//
I wanted to go home, climb into bed, bury myself in Michael's arms, and release this flood of emotion into him, but I couldn't do that to him. I couldn't pull him to me and feel his love penetrate the thick, liquid feeling of pain and anger that had surrounded me. I couldn't reach over and allow him to drink in this black, inky fluid filling my lungs. And he would have, without complaining. He would have loved me better. The only thing is: he can't, though I wish to God he could.
While anger was the foundation, the force driving the engine was fear - IS fear. I don't want to end up like Paul, with people coming to see me who all want to be somewhere else. They come to the hospice because they feel like it's what they're expected to do. I don't want to be resigned to what's going to happen. It's one thing to know what's coming and be as prepared as possible for it. It's another to give up, to throw your hands in the air, and let life take its frustration out on you. There's nothing to do but what you can do.
So I started going to the gym, trying to exhaust myself, at first. However, something crept in and took root. Then it took control. It was about becoming bigger. The more mass you have, the harder it is for the disease to break down. //Rationalization// I don't want to die...not now. I don't want to leave my life, especially Michael. //Finally, some truth// I don't want to see that look on his face ever again. The one I saw when I woke up the first time and knew he was sitting there beside me. 'Cause I'd been dreaming about him, feeling him kissing me tenderly on the forehead, like I was some fine piece of porcelain that would break under even the slightest pressure. When I knew he was real and saw the look in his eyes, there was this thing there. It wasn't just fear and it went way beyond terror. I've never seen anything thing like it in my life. I don't ever want to see anything like it again.
I started having these intense conversations with myself about nothing, really - at first. I mean they were just to pass the time, to occupy myself while I was working out. //but I have promises to keep// I was having one of those conversations about what the hell I was doing when I felt the first acid sting of the needle pierce my skin. When that first rush came over me, clouded my mind, and then suddenly brought everything back into focus with a sharpness that startled me. Then the conversation got pushed to the back of my mind where it continued but was significantly hushed.
All I wanted to do was go and find Michael. I had to find him, to touch him, and to have him touch me. I was invincible. I was Superman searching for Lois Lane to expose my true identity. I was Captain Astro rushing off to find Galaxy Lad. I was every fucking super hero that ever lived, that Michael had ever drooled over when he was growing up. I was able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I could fly through the air, out into the galaxy.
When I kissed him, I felt this shock of energy through my body. It was unlike anything I've ever felt before. When he touched me, my skin was all at once on fire and soothed. I was eighteen again. I was fucking invincible and I was going to live forever. //miles to go... miles to go... miles to go//
I wanted him so badly I could taste it. Everything he did, all the small and not so small moans of delight, every stroke of his hand as he explored my body, and the soft silkiness of his hair. The way his tongue danced in my mouth and the way he playfully sucked on my tongue. The press of his bare chest against mine and the definition of his back as he arched it into me while I penetrated him from behind. The way his head fell back into me, his eyes closed and his mouth slightly open. It was all familiar and yet it was uncomprehendingly new and exciting. I was touching my lover, my baby, my Michael, with new hands. I was seeing him through new eyes. I was loving him with an otherworldly intensity that fascinated me and drove me on. There was no fear. It was just the connecting of our bodies. It was a world of flesh enhanced by our love for each other. And all this took place in the back of Babylon. In a dark corner with other men around, other throbbing, pulsating bodies, other moans and stilted gasps of pleasure. The air was perfumed with the intoxicating scent of sweat and sex, driven on by the undulating beat of the music. And yet these things meant nothing. These things weren't even a consideration. There was only Michael and I and the way we fit together - the way we've fit since the moment I laid eyes on him.
When we finally got home, it was a frenzy of hands, mouths, and entangled legs. It was heat and passion on a biblical scale. I wanted him more than my next breath. I wanted to touch him, to feel him melt into me, to have him come so hard it sent shock waves around the fucking world. We fucked until we exhausted ourselves, then we started all over again. I was so hard and wanted him so much that my teeth itched. Our bodies locked in positions that I didn't even know were humanly possible. Michael was far more flexible than I had ever imagined. Anything I wanted to do, he was willing and more than capable of doing. He didn't surprise me. He encouraged me to find new and more imaginative ways of pleasing his body while he took me to levels of heaven and hell never before imagined, let alone endured. My body was one giant raw nerve and he did things to me with his mouth that were unbelievable and beyond my ability to describe them. I was utterly and unequivocally his, he was mine, and, for the first time, there wasn't that nagging feeling of 'what if.' I was just with him, consumed by him, consuming him, loving him, being loved by him, wanting him, and being wanted by him. I was dominated and surrendered to, while I surrendered and dominated. We made an altar of each other and offered up sacrifices of such beautifully decadent praise as to make the angels weep and demons blush.
To have this feeling last, I'd do anything. I didn't tell Michael because... because... because... Because there was and is no reason to tell him. The only thing he wants is for me to be happy and healthy. And I am now. I've taken care of it so that he never has to worry about me again. I'm stronger than ever. So what if I have this obsession with the gym? It's paying off, isn't it? And my hunger for life and Michael are insatiable. The only draw back right now is that at times I feel like I'm coming out of my skin - like it's on too damned tight and I need to be free of it. And then I see Michael. I touch him and that feeling fades into nothingness. It gets replaced with the overwhelming sensation of peace - as if nothing can touch me. Nothing can hurt me as long as I'm here with Michael, as long as I'm inside of him, surrounded by his warmth and love, his passion and desire.
When all is said and done, doesn't the end justify the means?
When that much effort has to be put into the answer, then you have your answer. Don't you?
Indeed.
The woods are lovely dark and deep.
But do your actions justify the promises you have to keep?
And how many miles must you go before you sleep?