: EVERY MOMENT IS LOVELY, YES :

and it goes by and it goes by and it goes by until it doesn't

And weeks go by and I picture a woman I have never met in person playing in the sun somewhere I have never known. She is funny and smart and what might have been. She must be happy because she is not around much any more, around me on the circuits and wires, and I am happy for her but sad for myself because I am selfish and my ego is out of control and I miss her, what so very little I held of her. She is feathering a nest, readying for a life she has never had but always wanted (secretly). The good stuff: video games and picnics at the beach and a future and maybe there is a white dress and a cake and all the tingly four-letter words. The things she was deprived of when she was a child. The things that seemed impossible to her as an adult. She should have those nice things, she deserves them. She should make them last for as long as she can, and it is hard hard work, so hard. I hope she can hold on to it. I could not.

And years go by and I see photos of the one I could not, another woman from long ago, a her I knew as well as you can know a her. In person, too. We touched in every way. We told lies like "forever." Photos on the circuits and wires of her in a long white dress cutting a cake and she is smiling in every photo, of course -- and also in the photos of her doing things not in a long white dress, cake or no cake, smiling a bright white smile, and it is wonderful that people can be so happy without me. She seems to be the same person she always was, when her head was in my lap, my hand stroking her hair, and this is all wonderful. It is wonderful to be small, our proper size in other lives. It is wonderful to be a memory inside of her that becomes less and less a memory as details fade into a vague feeling that marks a place and time that is gone. The feeling is all that lingers. We could not live if we remembered all the crimes of others and, worse, our own.

So it is there, in the far corner of the skull, and the only way to touch it is to close your eyes and reach through the black, feel for it, feel what it was for another to take you as you are and forgive you for it for a moment.


~O~

27 x like a billion = how much I love you:

xTx said...

Oh my god.
Oh.
My.
God.

rollerfink said...

i knew the one you never met. not on the circuits and wires but on the ground and in the air that we breathed. she spoke of you. with her words that were sometimes lies. her name was kyflatem.

(you are very great)

~otto~ said...

xTx,

Thanks

~O~

~otto~ said...

xTx,

I meant to say: tell me more

I am a slut


~O~

gamefaced said...

the heavy in my chest from these words and the tears i swallowed back cause i'm at work and it isn't becoming to sob at one's work station and the sighs that keeps catching on what you wrote what i just read i want kinda just to die a little bit and leave a little piece of myself here as homage maybe only to be a pause in the truths you arranged here perfectly. cause yeah dude, i fucking feel you.

Anonymous said...

Writing like this makes me want to be a better person. Then it makes me want to pay someone to nut kick that better person me everyday.

xTx said...

what gamefaced said.

oh rotto, how are you not, i don't know.

ana c. said...

all of the above
and <3

~otto~ said...

gamefaced, wow, thanks. I'm getting a little misty now.

~otto~ said...

wordsforguns, BOOM POW, right in the nads. Love it.

~otto~ said...

ana c.

<3 back

Snowbrush said...

Ah, a minimalist blog, as it were. No reliance on imagery, or the latest weather forecast, or how many people from how many places are reading alongside me. And, of course, no advertising.

I like your word imagery. Maybe most guys could relate.

~otto~ said...

Thanks, Snowbrush. I like to keep it about the words as much as possible. I used to rarely respond to comments for that reason, but that never felt good. Glad you stopped by and took the time to leave one for me.

Mariana Soffer said...

Beautiful writing! I really like your style, it is a pleasure to read it, you also throw interesting truth and thoughts in the mix.
I guess you should get rid of the ego, If you want to acceptance and forgiveness.
Take care my dear friend, keep writting

TC said...

Otto,

Afraid the egos and the images, along with the minims, are here to stay. All part of the package. And here we are stuck in the middle of your big two-hearted river with you. Without a paddle. Just the words.

It's all wonderful but it's all terrible at the same time... Y así pasan los días.

The great adventure which is reading you gets deeper even for those of us who can't take full advantage because our digits were lost on our Colombian school holiday.

All the other parts remain alert and appreciative. In, like, "real life". (Have always perhaps foolishly trusted the circuits and the wires existed only to somehow lead us back there anyway...?)

(N.B. This is a paid advertisement. Love, Mom.)


"accons"

~otto~ said...

Mariana,

Thanks, as always. I'm afraid Tom is right, though. No getting rid of it.

~O~

~otto~ said...

Tom,

Ego, yes. Never leaving. No cure. I am too sick for the cure. The cure would kill me. And it would probably make my fingers stop taping … either that or … BOOM CRACK GUNSHOTFIRECRACKER.

~O~

Pippi in the Doghouse said...

Hi.

~otto~ said...

Hi!

~otto~ said...

Echo?

~otto~ said...

Echo?

Pippi in the Doghouse said...

Come again?

~otto~ said...

The comment thingy was acting up and posted my "Hi!" twice like an echo

Pippi in the Doghouse said...

Don't worry, I was only pretending not to hear. ;)

~otto~ said...

clever!

Anonymous said...

I really enjoyed reading this. Thank you for writing it.

~otto~ said...

Kevin,

Thanks for the thanks. Means a lot to me.

~O~

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