The Ray Ward Hot Dog Argument

It seems to be more of an existentialist argument; that is, a Faustian bargain, perpetuated by our collective Jungian unconsciousness, to ensure that we as a people are never quite fulfilled, never quite manage to grasp all that we desire at once, and therefore to secure, the illusion at least, of eternal optimism and youth. Were we to have an equal share of everything we could want, we would most assuredly perish an ignoble death, our thirst for that little something extra having been slaked, our philosophical hunger more than satiated and our knowledge of our place on this planet a little too self-assured. For is it not the belief that we do not quite know where we are as a people that perpetuates progress? Since we do not know where we are, we feel challenged to move on, to go farther, until we find the answer. Once we have it, once there are no more riddles to solve and once there are no questions to ponder and once we are confident and content with our existence, there will be no more moving to do. Once there is no moving to do we die, because this life, and the next, is a journey, not a destination and reaching the end means meeting the end in all the ways that the end can be met. And that is why hot dogs come in packs of eight and hot dog buns come in packs of six.

Of Sunny Days

Sometimes I lie
on my back in the
grassy fields and
stare at the clouds until
they begin to look like
bunnies, and just hop
away.
Just leaving me to feel
the naked rays of
Sunshine,
leaving me to feel
the green grass
growing
beneath me,
leaving me
Alone.

From a Photo Album

I.
You can tell it’s been a long day.
She sleeps so still that if I didn’t
Know any better
I might question how real she is.
Or how real I am.
There’s no telling how long it will be
Until she awakens
So I hold my breath in consideration
Of her quiet time.
Because it’s going to be a long night,
Though I’d rather she wake up soon
Because it’s my bed.

II.
I’m not asleep,
But I lay here with heavy hands
And tired eyes
To see if he’ll slip up and say
Something.
It’s always worked before…
He’s not talking. I’ll just
Pout a little so he’ll look
At me more
And realize I’m dreaming of
Him…
He’s still not saying anything
And I’ve been lying here so long
That my eyes really do feel heavy
And my body has never been so
Comfortable.
It doesn’t matter anyway.
I’ll see him when I wake up.
This is his bed.

What I remember is

What I remember is
being cold and hungry,
starved for attention.

She made me remember life
From butterfly kisses
To wishing well wishes
And everything in between.
With her, there were no limits,
No highs and lows
No frozen toes in the winter because
My feet stuck out past the covers.
I loved her with such passion
That it felt like forever.
I mean, I even wrote her letters
That I never, ever sent.
I read them from my window
And she would just pretend,
Even though I was right there,
That she couldn’t hear me.
I just read my letters louder.
I was screaming love from
Across the way, until one day
I was just talking to myself.
     And the thing of it is,
After the butterfly kisses
And wishing well wishes,
Between diamond rings
And things said at night
From one window to another,
I learned that loving her was pain.
So I forgot again.

What Love Is

Love is such a tissue of paradoxes, and exists in such an endless variety of forms and shades, that you may say almost anything about it that you please, and it is likely to be correct. If that is true then I will say this: the paradox of love is that it is the highest degree of awareness of the self as a person and the highest degree of absorption in the other. It is because this is true that it hurts so badly to know that she is gone forever. In loving her, I found myself. I never truly knew how she felt because I never asked. It didn’t matter. I loved enough for the both of us. And now, now that it was said and done, I still loved her, the difference now that love was the last thing that remained of her. And with that, I drove into the sunset.  

Common Sense

Obscure recollections of indiscretions
clouded by the haze in nightclubs
The rush fantastic
High heeled dreams in every corner
singing their siren's song.
"Can you buy a lady a drink?"
I think not,
for I've been down that road before
wound up on dusty floors
making love to red lipstick
and cheap peach perfume.
I've tried to leave the life behind
but I have obscure recollections
of indiscretions
clouded by the haze in nightclubs
and I keep going back for more.

Test

I utter the writer's credo: That everything here is fiction. That nothing is reflective of what it is, what I want it to be, who I want it to be with, and so on and so forth.