It doesn’t mean anything until it does, like saying size doesn’t
matter, when it is all there is, like that time when she took a long ride
through New York State with her boyfriend when she stumbled onto the perfect
job, only the dean there has already offered it to someone else, all this from
an account by an admirer who did not see the forest for the trees, or suspected
something might have been amiss when she campaigned to get that job, and mysteriously,
the dean took back his offer to that other person and gave it to her. It meant
something then.
Or that time when her girl friend’s boyfriend began his campaign
to get her, and she eventually relented, thinking it didn’t matter, until the
SOB decided he wanted more than she offered, and then it meant something.
And so, when she told me how it didn’t matter with that guy
she picked up at a bar, I believed her, even though I wondered whether or not
it mattered when my time came to bat, and how I still wish it did since it
mattered to me.
Kids parade the streets like flocks of geese, the same
sound, only unlike summer, their coming and going more predictable, tied to
school buses rather than a change of season, their world changed dramatically
from when I was their age, a strange alignment of planets, the advent of new technology,
carrying cell phones the way Dick Tracy did his watch, familiar faces on the screens
to whom they talk, school boys dressing up punk, school girls so utterly
provocative as to make the nuns who taught me cringe, their lives dictated by a
whole new code I’m still shocked by, coming together and pulling apart in ways
that I never imagined at their age, bliss letting them paint whatever vision
they want, while I’m stuck in the past, wishing I could go back or grow up, or
to have known what they already know.
Is throbs, just not always from the same place or for the same reason.
I can cure with a few strokes.
I don't always want to relieve it, needinh to feel it, needing to need it even though that is no longer possible with her, to keep on throbbing, to feel the need when I close my eyes and remember her
I don't always want the pain to cease, feeling it making me realize I am still alive, this throbbing so entangle, so connected with visions of her, a few strokes and it vanishes, when I do not want it to vanish, embracing it just as I embrace her as a ghost, that throb reminding me of all I hope for, and will never get, and yet feel as if I have, each time it consumes me, my head filled with the fog of it , a need so desperate otherwise I would not be alive
A day after the parade the streets are still littered with
bits of green, and high hopes for spring, glittering green, steamers and hats,
empty glasses, the cheer mere echoes in the distance, as the real world regains
its grip, and we all slip back into the day to day routines we can only momentarily
forget, few others along this street taking notices, already forgotten, as are
many of those of us who partook, this spring ritual lacking the maypoles around
which to dance, and those who we would still dance with, given a chance
Even now I’m tempted to touch it, when I think of her, just
as I did on those dark nights, texting leading to touching, even when she could
not see what I did on my end of the thing, unable to see what I saw, what I
still see sometimes, what inspired me.
I ought to be over all this like an invalid that should have
recovered as time moves on, Mostly I am, except on some nights when it all
comes out again, like a ghost, and my fingers crawl across fabric and try to
touch it again, and again I think of her, in the dark, in the dead of night, no
texts to stir me up, only memories, and wishes that won’t ever come true, stirred
up, while I can’t keep it down any more
I’ve felt this way before, if not recently, then just acutely,
living with the duel feelings that come watching (or thinking about) another
man fucking the woman (women) I love.
This intense sense of helplessness, mingled with an odd
sexual throb, like a fan at a sporting event getting off when other team
scores.
Some men like me thrive on it, finding pleasure in watching or
thinking of it happening, tied and gagged in the corner of the bedroom as this
man, any man, friend, enemy or complete stranger takes the plunge, and she –
the one we love, the one who once loved us, laps it all up, moaning as the
bedposts pound the wall.
I got a twinge of this when she sent me that dark photo of
her friends in her apartment, as if I knew one or more of them would be pounding
the bedposts there, and my imagination filled in the pieces, maybe an illusion,
maybe unreal, but stirring up the horror of and the pleasure of thinking she
was being fucked.
This feel grew worse when I realized I had been replaced, a
cuck forced to watch as she made time with my boss, and then later his boss,
trickling her way up, when I ached to be the one hovering over her in the dark.
Pleasure and pain mingling in my blood, boiling up in me,
making me cringe while at the same time pressing that spot inside me that brings
that strange and pleasant pain, the only greater torture of my possibly being
tied up in that room and forced to watch, gagged to keep me from interrupting their
pleasure, and perhaps she loving the idea that I ached so much and could do so
little – this same intensity that time I left her at the bar, when she – just a
little drunk – flirted with the bartender, and I, the cuck that I am, sat on
the barstool beside her, unable to do anything except, finally, desperately,
perhaps wrongly, got up and left, later hearing her scream at me on the
telephone asking “Why did you leave me?”
Maybe I should have accepted it, taken the pain, enjoyed the
odd pleasure of watching her go home with him instead of me.
All I want is to put it in her, only can ‘t pump it up enough and wonder what I might do instead, even now,
so much later, I finally managed to get it where it ought to be, too late, you
can’t do it to a ghost, and sometimes, I wonder if she always had other plans
for me, wishful thinking inspired by wish-filled dreams, putting it wherever
she wants, my head spinning like a top, an issue I can never resolve, leaving the
climax to take place in m dreams.
I feel the absence like I would a missing tooth, not fully
aware after all this time why it occurred, only aware of the reality, the blackhole
into which my whole world collapsed, back then, this day before the day when
Spring comes, a long six weeks since he groundhog saw his shadow. This time of
year – like back then – is always the start of something new, and often
unexpected, the vacancy of winter aching to get filled, and I wait, and I
wonder, how is it I can fill up something so long gone, something I still crave
to get back, even when it is clear, some spaces just can’t be refilled, and we
must live with the vacancy.
How many angels can you fit on the tip of a pin, this age
old question hanging over me, and yet has only one real answer.
How many do you need when one is more than enough?
This idea that everybody has a guardian angel has always
puzzled me, as if God mass produced them to keep up with all the people popping
out, like a rubber stamp or on an assembly line.
One to one is enough if it is the right angle, whose soul
(do angels have souls like people?) is gentle and kind, unlike the stern nuns
who used to beat me in grammar school in order to bringing me salvation, and
get me back on track.
I keep looking over one shoulder for the angel God assigned
to me, then over my other shoulder for the one the Devil sent, the second
having had much more influence on me than my angel or the nuns, though more
than once I’ve wished for the protection angles are supposed to give, hoping
the good outweighs the bad I’ve done, and while I might blame it all on the
devil (the devil made me do it), I know I got here all on my own.
“I got good news and bad news for you, “ my Urologist said
during my semi annual check up.
The good news was the m PSA levels had gone down, indicating
less chance of cancer.
Two years ago, these levels jumped from one to six, and
while not the deadly level of ten that indicated possible cancer. it was a real concern, prompting painful procedures
that included a snake-like camera pushed up into my penis (with only a local that
only reduced the pain at the tip. Later, I underwent an MRI, pet scan and other
similar procedures, topped off with a very painful series of biopsies.
The surgery that I got later was a scraping that allowed me
to pee, but had screwed up my ability to cum. While I could still have sex, the
cum tended to remain in the plumbing long afterwards, oozing out into my
underwear at most inconvenient times.
All that said, the bad news is that my prostate – almost the
size of a baseball – was showing no sign of reduction, and as a result, my
growing prostate began the inevitable shrinking of my cock.
As a teenager, I had accepted the myth said claimed a man with
a nose as big as mine had a large cock as well.
But now with my prostate growing, my cock had gone from a
barely adequate six inches to slightly more than three with every indication I
might watch it vanish entirely. This, of course, affected erections
I consulted my gay friend, Max, who knew as much as prostates
as my urologist, and I asked him what could be done.
He gravely told me not a lot, but with hopeful news, I might
find ways to compensate for my inadequate sex life, and might enjoy a revival
of the pleasures I had when I was still a teen.
It took me a moment to get his meaning, and when I did, I
said, “no way!”
When I consulted my urologist on the matter, he reluctantly
confirmed my gay friend’s analysis, though added I would need to do much more
if I intended to go that way, estrogen shots and testosterone blockers – which would
shrink my penis more and might require the removing on my testicles entirely.
But what I lost down below, I would gain upstairs. Max said this often resulted
in development of breasts – but the process could help me shift my source of sexual
gratification to my mouth and to my ass, which Max called my boi pussy.
I asked Max if I could still masturbate. He shook his head.
“You could rub what’s left, but you’d get more pleasure by
sticking your fingers up your ass,” he said, noting that if I went the drug
route the urologist suggested, I would find my pleasure center shifted to that
part of my body anyway.
I did not consult my urologist about Max’s suggestions for
oral and anal sex. Frankly, I did not want to know anything about it, even
though Max said he would help dress me up so I was in a more receptive mood, by
which he meant wearing women’s clothing 44/7, making me fit the role that my enlarged
prostate appeared to be seeking me to play.
“So, you’re saying you want to turn me into a woman?” I asked.
“As close as you can get without getting extensive surgery,”
Max said. “You’ll never be able to use your winky the way you used to, so why
not go all the way?”
I won’t say I wasn’t tempted. I ached to feel the way I once
did. But I was still attached to my winky, having lived with its up and down
moods my entire life. I would miss it if it wasn’t there.
Max was clearly disappointed when I told him that I didn’t
want to go that way and I would just have to live with the shrinkage.
He proposed a compromise. If I didn’t want men fucking me in
the ass, I could still derive pleasure from sucking their cocks.
“I’m sure you’d make a great cock sucker,” Max said.
If I look carefully, I can still catch sight of the bits of
snow which only a short time ago buried us, just a smattering here in those
places where someone had piled it high on curb or lawn for lack of a better
place to put it all, storm after storm, bringing us more and more snow, after a
number of years of no or little snow at all.
I’m not sure if this bodes ill, the returning to what I knew
as a kid, or that there is still hope for the world which is its own mistress,
and perhaps suspects the fantasy wishes of fools who inform us we are so potent
a force we can defy mother nature.
Maybe now, this slow fade out of winter and coming of spring
will tell us we ought to live with what is, rather than making up what we think
we believe, this said, I’m not yet putting the snow shovels away, and will wait
and see.
We all want to go back to get to a point on the meter where
me might do over what we did before, not always because we made mistakes (as we
inevitably did), but because we might do what we did back then better, and preserve
who we were, are or intended to be, each choice we’ve made changes us, steers
us in a new direction, to a place we may not have wanted to go, but went to
anywhere, then left us to wonder what might have happened, who we might have become,
if we had turned right instead of left, or three times, picked ourselves up off
the floor, dusted ourselves off, and staggered on, not to look back until it
was impossible to go back.
Who might we have become if we had not pushed on, would we
be better or worse, or merely different? Would we really want to change
anything if we could, not knowing who we might become if we did, better or
worse, not the person we are today, knowing now how we ended up, good or bad or
different.
I can’t blame her for how I feel. I let my guard down,
knowing what I could have had back then, but blew it, knowing now I would never
have become “the one,” her insatiable need never able to be fulfilled by
someone like me, always a temporary arrangement, my back just another rung on a
ladder to someone else, a stepping stone; a man like me needs to learn his
place in her world or have no place.
I still see her face when I close my eyes, as vivid now as
when she sat across from me, forbidden fruit, dangerous but tempting, yet
always just out of reach.
I can’t blame her for stoking up this fire in me, when I
laid the kindling there first, desperate for the right match to set me ablaze,
as she ultimately did, she more than just another face in the crowd, someone
filled with a potency I could not resist, but should have, and even now, thinking
if I had kept to that high road, I might have retained my place, if not as
lover, then maybe a friend, and now, thinking, it might have been enough
They say you only know who your friends are in the midst of conflict,
the hand that holds your elbow when you struggle, the word whispered in your
ear when you come near to giving up.
But what do you do when you’ve already won; who do you trust?
What is it that inspires you to this “serge to fight?”
Are these shadows you box against?
You say you’ve gotten used to the smell of dirt, having fallen
so often, exhaustion dragging you down, and still you rise, torn and bleeding
to resume the struggle – instinct telling, you’re not done yet, even though you
keep telling yourself to give up, you never will.
It is not in your nature to surrender without a fight, even
when the odds seem overwhelming and the whole world dead set against you.
The world refuses to understand you, though a few doe, those
true friends you’ve hand picked who pick you up with you call, and treat your
wounds, and feed you words of encouragement, telling you again and again, you’re
quest is right
I prick my finger each time I try to pause and sniff what is
beautiful in the perfect world, where everyone has a two-car garage and plastic
seat covers and drive to places most people in my neck of the woods would walk to.
Only unlucky workers walk, the maids from the bus stop side by side with the
nannies. Men come in pickup trucks trailing trailers full of garden equipment,
leaf blowers where a generation ago they were forced to use rakes, piling up
the remnants from the previous fall so they can no longer burn, as laws
prohibit them from filling the air with fumes we used to love smelling as kids,
now instead of piles of leaves, we get big orange bags.
Gardeners plant rose bushes or fill trellises for grapes,
men with gnarled and bloody fingers, gloves unable to hold back the bite of
thorns, or is it the sticky touch of the rose they resist, not even
appreciating the scent, as if sweat mingling with it all ruins even that for
men and women who labor their lives to maintain the houses with fancy lawns and
picket fences, roses that in any other time or place would smell so sweet.
