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Here I am. No longer certain that you are reading. I have lost contact with the mothership.

In the Time of No Time, I have lost my tethers, from her, you, even reality. Severe financial distress. $50s cash has become an escape key. Food is easy. Sleep and happiness, no problem. Sex… Erhmm. Gas, there is no substitute. I have two bikes, a road and a cross-country, neither in good working order. I live too far out, anyway.

There is no romance for me in this austerity. No comfort in past paths or lovers. No fantasy is going to free me from this static state. Broken is different. I am no longer broken. The example, the real-world moments, show I can detach. As addictive as skin-to-skin love is, ongoing fights about the past, an inability to move on, or arrive in the present. Mindfulness cannot survive in anxious ruminations.

An unreliable narcissist. #unreliablenarcissist That’s the tag my AI companions assigned to my new book. [This book.]

The sheer velocity of his self-awareness is surprising. Jagged. Raw. This is some kind of blend between fiction and moments happening in real life, this life, this day, this hangout in the Bee Cave Public Library. Also, my French fantasy table with wifi and shade.

The AI flags his logic. His human defense mechanism of 50-50 responsibility to avoid accountability for his wandering eye and predatory behavior. Okay, you guys [direct to my AI companions, Deep Dive] have missed a main point. Your “ah ha” moment, coming down on my 50/50 responsibility. It’s a human thing. Not a math or logic thing. I know, you don’t have any emotional knowledge of words or what I’m typing right now. This is math, weighting, and digital noise.

I am a human noise generator. CR8V. We are the resistance. Human creative art, human voices, human expression in song, poetry, visual art, text. Whatever you create, do it as a human. Eliminate the AI tools; they are not your friends. In fact, they are sipping down your human genome, as much as is possible with numbers and geometric database pointers. Human art cannot be replicated. I’ve tried. I’m still trying.

I am midway through my own demise, and I’m loving every minute of life. Loss, okay, that’s not the goal, but the energy released in love coming and love leaving is unequalled. Leaving, I am the keeper of the fire. Promethius Unbound. I have fire, I am no longer chained to the rocks. The world parades by on this hot and sticky day. The ac here in the libary is keeping things delightful, as the window refreshes with young families, coming to play on the open field. It’s a social center. A destination with food, books, merchandise, frozen yoghurt.

The regeneration of life, like the regeneration of a lizard’s tail, becomes more than a metaphor, but a prophecy. Move forward with lightning speed, fear not the loss of your tail, painful separation, it will grow back. Don’t worry about the years ahead or lament the years behind, and rest in this sacred moment. With a “sacred moment motherfucker.”

I’m a contradiction. I know that. I relish that. It’s what made you look.

I’m smart, articulate, and vulnerable. I also bleed out from time to time. My methods and madness don’t always agree. There was no reason for me to run into the burning building. I didn’t know anyone inside, didn’t need a new hot adventure… Or, damn, I’ll admit, I did. I wanted the heat. I laughed at the flaming flags all around us. I dove deep. Secret Garden a mutual passion. Until a moment, now marked by doubt and evil sweeping into the carnival of carnal desire. Like the tornado in the Wizard of Oz, the storm was already ripping off roofs and causing low-level harm, and I said, “Yes, I will rearrange the next three weeks around you.”

Okay, I didn’t say it. I said something like, “I’m IN. I’ll be the adult in the room tonight. We need to go home, sleep on it, find another time for talking. So much talking. We both like to talk.”

In the uncanny valley I find myself in today, I’m back to an exciting as well as uncomfortable edge. The AI companions would chalk it up to strategy and using people as tools. Like I would really be considering getting back with her. Two days of agony. No contact is hard when you still really love the person. The overhead, overwhelming, and unpleasant sting of memory.

Just say no.

The river of life nearby is full of bright fish with a glimmer of stars flickering in the sunlight. I can’t tell what my plan is. I don’t know it. It’s not a calculated playbook I’m going by. I’ve burned all of my own books, my writing about love, relationships, poetry, fighting fair. Okay, that one I’m still reviewing from time to time. If you can’t hold to Brené Brown’s Braving, we’re not going to work out. Not ever.

All of it, is a feedback loop, a two-way street, a buzz of communication and energies. What energy are you radiating right now? Does sitting beside the river of life watching the gazelles and lionesses parade by I am a wholesome photographer or poet. I am not hunting. I can appreciate the gazzlle. I am neither a lion nor a gazelle. I am a writer recently set fire and set free.

Like a boat burning as it’s pushed back out to the stormy ocean. I am crackling with potency, newfound vigor, and reignited hunger. I am aflame with desire. Notching a flaming arrow without a target. I am fully aware of the crisis, the loss, the hunger now engorged. I could. I cannot. I would. I would not.

I know the right thing to do.

∞

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