Prepare yourselves; this isn’t going to be easy for you to hear. Then again, perhaps I was the odd-one-out all those years and this is totally normal? That’s not necessarily a question, I’m just using the question mark for inflection. Not totally sure if that’s allowed within the rules of the English language but, again, is anyone really keeping score at this point?
I mean, if our leader doesn’t care about spelling and such, why should we?
Seriously; the art of communication has become a runaway episode of “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”.
Let’s set the tone.
Rest in peace.
Also…
Somewhere in-between those. It’s a beautiful morning. I feel like making magic.
In the meantime…
As I was saying, once you’ve reached your preferred morning level of consciousness, do one of those super-nasty sinus rinse thingies with warm water and one of those saline packets. I swear to the lords both above or below – “mornin’ ma’am; sir, (nod)” – that you can literally feel the demons leaving your body. It’s intense, is what it is!
I invite you to brave the gag-reflex and make this happen. By midday, if you could, you’d want to hug me. I’d let you.
I’m waking up.
I’m vibrating in ways I’ve not done since before my life’s great deception. A true decade of shadows. If you remove all of the political bullshit I bring up, I used to be a really sweet guy.
Seriously; a decade ago, I was in a loving relationship with someone I considered to be my lifelong best friend, and I had a budding writing career with a literary agency in London. I had three traditionally published books on the market before the great KDP explosion. If only I’d stayed the course, right? Not quite.
I strayed.
She’d strayed, and I was emotionally lonely. I was also traveling a lot.
Captain Save-A-Hoe tripped over his own feet and landed face-first into questionable puddles. Puddles with names.
Like a curse of sorts, my life, career, ambitions, friends, family, kids, world, and future swirled around me in an alcoholic haze of nightmarish performances. My stomach lurches as I type this. Literally.
A year of deception came back upon me tenfold – as preached in even the most primitive religions worldwide. I closed my eyes and jumped.
Dammit, Jim. Dammit.
In that moment when I took the bait, nothing I did in life was honest for three whole years. Near death in moments, I wallowed in metaphorical filth until I cracked. The hand who finally helped me up belonged to a deity, but not in any traditional sense; none most would recognize anyway. Once again, I have someone in my life I’d kill for. Also, my weapons budget has gotten bigger, so I have that going for me.
When the month of February struck, marking the ten year anniversary to my soul’s great deception, I felt something change. Actually, it’s more like I felt something change, and then I realized it was February 2026. Was my well-deserved curse lifting, time-served, sentence complete? I didn’t want to tempt the fates; poke the bear, etc.
Over the last ten days, I’ve noticed weight removed from my shoulders; metaphorically. I sing with emotion rather than impression, or at least I’m trying to make it a more regular thing. I can feel a sort of buzz when I create that I haven’t felt since that time before crossing my own line out of cliche’d jealousy. Like, the level of country-music-inspired nonsense. I wish this were fiction.
So fucking embarrassed, and I haven’t been embarrassed of much of anything since high school. I let it swallow so much of who I was as a person and an artist, but I also feel that time is over. It’s time to get on with it.
In my seven year ascension back to humanity, I’ve gained a new family, stopped smoking, stopped drinking, learned to play guitar, crashed writing career 2.0 or 3.0 (I lose count), and lost just about everyone in my life who knew me as a person prior to the placement of the ten year ghost. I can’t cry about that shit any longer. I’m finally happy, I make her happy, and it’s time to do things again. Me things.
Not things to bait readers or sales; the opposite. I’m gonna throw shit against the wall to see what sticks. It sure beats standing there with a handful of shit staring at a blank wall.
The only difference is that I’m going to do it with a smile on my face and joy in my goddamned heart for a change. Likeminded souls will gravitate to what I’m chirping, eventually, as they did before, and there you have it.
A letter opener.
In love I left; in love I’ll stay. The end.
Preach truths, toke jokes, and shoplift Amazon. Tears for those I lost along the way. Smiles for those I’ve yet to meet.
For the most part. Perhaps it’d be easier on some if it were, “all you chose to read about that?”
Just a thought. Kind of a cure-all for your own disease at this point.
And now the magic fails. Gotta refuel…
Tomorrow begins places I've never been.
In hindsight – honestly – I think it’s too dangerous for me to have friends, so it kind of works out well for everyone involved.
The Gonzo Wolf 
Leave a comment