2002-01-15 - 5:15 a.m.
What price? Van Gogh's ear. Those who float through life, do they feel it too? Somewhere there's a person who has always been wealthy, talented and good looking. They are sitting, right now, in their fabulous home, being sexually serviced by someone they adore. Do they feel it? Those snarling jaws, the wind on fire, their guts turning to tripe with each breath?
I had an upper-middle class upbringing. My father was famous, well off and talented. My mother was beautiful, generous, poetic and loving. My family was very tight, the usual sibling squabbles but no real tragedies. My youth was spent in country clubs, traveling to New York, Santa Fe, Jamaica, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, private school, swim team, soccer MVP, the American dream. Why did I seek out the "losers" as my compatriots? I identified with the druggies, the gang members, the bad kids. I've heard stories about some of the kids I grew up with. Some went into the world of junkies, thieves, homelessness. One of them is now a speed freak carny. I was well on the same trail. I spent a year lost in alcoholic stupor, sleeping on the street, peoples couches, always taking, taking, taking. If poetry had not come back around, would I ever have been anything more than a burnt out punk rock wannabe? Would I have put the Spankers together? Do I count myself as successful now? Sometimes.
Someone recently accused me of being pompous by keeping an online diary. Well, this could be my most pompous entry. But I gotta tell ya'. This diary has kept me going at times. Sure, it's another stab at the brass ring, an ego stroke and a self promotion tool but it's also an escape, a whisper of freedom from the terror in my head. There's a frozen lake that is my work ethic, this journal keeps widening the cracks in the ice. Recently, I discovered the feature on this website where I could view the diaryland members who have listed this journal among their favorites. I was surprised to find as many as there were. It really made me feel good that there are a few folks out there that get off to reading my stuff.
I had a crazy dream tonight, that's why I'm awake.
