—NOTHING TO DO BUT KEEP TEXTING MY THERAPIST 

“Look, we both said some stuff we shouldn’t have. But we’ve also known each other all this time, and we can’t just give that up because of some stupid words, because we’re both stupid people.” Sex Education

 

“I think hell is something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go.” Neil Gaiman

 

“But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels for me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel that way for you?” Kazuo Ishiguro

 

“Success is nothing without someone you love to share it with.” Billy Dee Williams, Mahogany

 

“Describe a circle, stroke its back and it turns vicious.” Eugen Ionesco

 

“Trust is hard to come by. That’s why my circle is small and tight.” Eminem

“My saints are a camera and a gun. They’re both fiercely truthful.” Sean McAvoy, Mahogany

 

“I feel perpetually suspended between celebration and grief.” Danielle Colin

 

“Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Rainer Maria Rilke

 

“I am a dirt person. I don’t trust diamonds and gold.” Eartha Kitt

 

“I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee.”

 

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in suffering.” Friedrich Neitzsche

 

“Every great friendship starts with: ‘When I first saw you, I thought you were a bitch.’” R. Kaplan

 

“Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the fun.” Albert Camus

 

“For me, art is the experience of what you’ve felt inside.” Abbas Kiarostami

 

“I am writing a book about all the things I should be doing. It’s called an oughtobiography.” Jordana Isabel

 

“I like people too much or not at all.” Sylvia Plath

 

“If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” Charles Bukowski

 

“A flower does not use words to announce its arrival to the world; it just blooms.” Curtis T. Jones

 

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.” Jean-Paul Sarte

 

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” Lao Tzu

 

“When there is no hope, we must invent it.” Albert Camus

 

“I am, and I am not.” Rumi

—YOU TOOK THE WORDS RIGHT OUT OF MY MOUTH

  

…Hey, Friday, how did you get so damned sun-tanned?

 

…If you want your mind opened up, watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etIqln7vT4w

 

…Here some other things I like for the weekend:

 

“You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.” Frida Khalo

 

“And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet.” Allen Ginsberg

 

“You will have memories because of what we did back then, when we were new at this. Yes, we did many things then—all of them beautiful.” Sappho

 

“Let’s be alone together.” Leonard Cohen

 

“It’s totally normal, the way you can waste your life trying to fix your life.” Bianca Stone

 

“I am a garden of black and red agonies.” Sylvia Plath

 

“Soon I’ll find the right words, they’ll be very simple.” Jack Kerouac

 

“If you’re not allowed to say it, it’s probably true.” Peter Thiel

 

“Sometimes the only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.” Girl, Interrupted

 

"Oh, baby, never ever forget how magical life can be, or is about to be. Open your eyes, open your heart. Things are coming." Tennessee Williams

 

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.” Aldous Huxley

 

"I tell my kids, be careful who your heroes are." Rob Lowe

 

“I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” Charlie Brown

 

"It didn't matter where you were, if you were in a room full of books you were at least halfway home." Lev Grossman

 

"I’m busy going brain laundry, separating my thoughts into lights and darks.” T. Jones

 

“In the end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not their poets.” Jonas Mekas

 

“Hamburger Helper only works if the hamburger is ready to accept that it needs help.” Keith Robert

 --COULDN'T BE MORE GRATEFUL

YAAY! Tomorrow my new book turns 3 months old. I’m so grateful for all the kind notes and also for so many of you who have sent me photos of you (or your pet) reading it.

If anyone else wants the link, you get the book here:

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/len-kuntz/this-is-me-being-brave/paperback/product-4ep8g7.html?fbclid=IwAR0zVdKr9s07EzY2fbM5NNtykAlZEcjnRfM5zuEaxe3RMxvXva_orfk90Zk&page=1&pageSize=4

—AIN’T NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, WE WERE DOUBLY BLESSED

  

Things I Learned Last Week

 

 

…46% of all people don’t like kissing. (xonecole)

 

…I really like kissing, and I absolutely hate to sleep alone.

 

…Father Time is undefeated (I already knew that one, but was reminded.)

 

…I’m a selfish asshole, as well as a dumbass (Also reminded.)

 

…My best friend is my best friend for a plethora of reasons (Also reminded.)

 

…It’s pretty easy to hurt someone.

 

…Saying, “Dad” feels wonderful when it’s true.

 

…”Unwrapping gifts” sounds innocent enough, yet very erotic at the same time. 

 

…It’s really, really, really hard to let go of some things, which probably means you shouldn’t, right?

 

… If you can just put your ego on the shelf, forgiveness is actually pretty easy. 

Forgiveness makes everything easier, and your heart calms wayyy down. 

 

…Meatloaf meant a lot more to me than I ever realized.

 

…Gracie Lawrence is lightning, a wunderkid.

 

…No matter how much I try, I will never be a sci-fi fan in any form.

 

…They were right: Sometimes, the road to Hell actually is paved with good intentions.

Yep.

 

…Stevie Wonder doesn’t get enough credit.

 

…I’m ready to get COVID and just be done with it.

 

…There should be a Marvin Gaye film, and why hasn’t there already?

 

…I’m not a fan, whatsoever, of Aaron Rodger, Patrick Mahomes or fucking Jake from State Farm.

 

…It would be fun to get into jazz, but hard not to feel pretentious doing so.

 

…Even the greatest of all time can look pretty awful in the right/worst circumstances.

 

…Fashion can be fun, but also incredibly stupid.

 

…Sometimes, adverbs, as with swear words, are necessary to adequately relay, and underscore, a point.

 

…Bigfoot believes in hope!

 

…“You have two choices: To tell the people that they are right to put you on the bench, or to prove them wrong.” Mohamad Salah

 

…I have lost more writing than I recall writing. 

 

…God plays favorites.

 

…I have received more gifts than I’ve ever deserved.

 

…I’m really okay with dying. 

 —THURSDAY, WATCH THE WALLS INSTEAD, IT’S FRIDAY

 

 

vests

 

sometimes life

becomes a vest 

weighing too much 

or a vest bomb 

about to detonate 

and every room 

is on fire 

even the safest places

but know that under

the embers I’ll be there

saying, “It’s okay. Cry

as much as you need,” 

and, “No matter how 

weak you feel,

I’ll keep repeating, 

I believe in you. 

  I believe in you. 

    I believe in you.’”

—CAN’T TRUST NO ONE, CAN’T EVEN TRUST YOURSELF 

 

              I walk my ghost     to the car     to church to Kentucky     to the river’s edge where the water back-talks its mother     the moon     my ghost keeps running its mouth like a threadbare know-it-all     going on about Jeopardy! and NPR     and how Dr. Phil should be excommunicated     my ghost has frayed nerves and upturned regrets     conflicted feelings about its last confession and      the road less taken      at the river my ghost     swan dives in the shallow end     where it breaks its neck on a barely submerged boulder     frantic I carry my ghost to Emergency where     the nurses and doctors can’t stop laughing     telling me Happy Birthday!    telling me Speech! Speech!    even though my tongue has dry rot and    I haven’t said your name in years.

 —EVERY BRICK IS GOING DOWN THE WRONG ROAD

  

                                             There, Not There

 

My lover wears a mask when we make love, says it keeps her nose warm, her extremities focused and precise. When at last I reach a station, she says, There, not there. There. There.

The mattress is overloaded with bills—phone, propane, utilities, garbage, sewer, Nordstrom and MasterCard. As we shift across them, each note mewls, demanding attention, if not also payment, and there’s a further wilting.

So we slow play, her skin like faience, her eyes darting minnows. I notice everything, her centipede brows, the lack of Botox, the faint popcorn seed scar on her right temple. After all, these are the days of wine and more wine, despair deaths on an incline, though our skins have never been more desperate.

There, not there.

The pandemic has pulled us into another galaxy, a retreat of regrets that we suck on when we’re unsure, which is all the time. The pandemic has a punch line it alone knows alone. The pandemic has a loan shark’s recollection.

There, not there, my lover says when I push the wrong button again.

Before all the infections, the trees used to quote us their history and the geese were reliable fortune tellers. Now every fish in the lake makes a ruckus, carnival barking trout and loud-bellied bass belittling even our frailest fears. It would be funny if the neighbors ever stopped shooting.

Her grandfather passed first, then grandma. Their years had slowed to a cough, but still. Then her dad. And now her mother is tubed and remote.

If we could be happy one night, the sun just might let us off easy, and the moon might repossess our doom under different conditions. Or so we hope.

With the mask on, I can’t tell if she’s smiling or in agony. I can’t even be sure it’s her, though her bones weigh about the same as always.

When I try my usual trick, she grabs my wrist and escorts it to another planet. There, not there, she says one final time, as if I’m supposed to know where we’re headed.

 

 —LOOK AT US, HIDING BEHIND OUR WINE GLASSES

  

A  d  a  g  i   o

 

 

I kiss you 

larghissimo 

adagissimo 

largo lento

larghetto

adagio

I kiss you

in dog years 

in Memphis

Mandan

Mauritius 

March May

Mars

Mercury

on a sacred 

pew in 

St. Petersburg

the Metro

the Louvre

in a cab 

bath

booth

a blind fever 

in a coma 

in concert 

with yourself 

or your 

persistent demons

I kiss you 

yesterday forever

tomorrow 

Tuesday Wednesday-

stay-in-bed

I kiss you 

Friday-heart attack

I kiss you

too soon

too early 

or late

at your funeral 

or mine 

I kiss you 

kiss you 

kiss you 

can you feel them

my lips moving 

eager as 

love itself

leaping from 

this shore

to yours

 

—NOTHING LASTS FOREVER BUT THE EARTH AND SKY

 

I Remember Mandan

 

 

I remember 

puka shells and 

gay jokes  

platform shoes and 

choke holds   

three broken bones  

my first week 

me the new kid  

the girls liked  

who the boys  

tortured endlessly 

scarecrow tied to 

a tetherball pole 

fists and knuckles  

knuckles and fists 

each afternoon before  

the school bus  

belched to a stop 

In Spanish class  

I didn’t know  

the word for blind  

but I knew casa  

knew this wasn’t it 

so the next day I cut  

the first kid to lunge  

and the second but  

blacked out on the  

third fourth fifth 

fists and knuckles  

knuckles and fists  

blinding me in blood 

That night I packed up

without a note for Dad  

rode the dog bus west

watched the trees shuffle 

like a deck of cards   

while I claimed each 

blurred mile  

as my new home 

 —YOU’RE TOO MUCH

  

…That was about as bad a weekend as they come. Let’s hope my doctor has good news today. There’s only so much a guy can take. And, yes, I’ll happily and gratefully accept your prayers. 

 

…All that time, and for what? (Okay, I’ll let it go now. It’s not like I even have a choice anyway.)

 

…Some things are better left in the archives. I could give you a long list.

 

…I’m counting on my good friend to make sense of things tonight, in the way that only a good friend can.  

 

…Sorry to sound so bitter, but thanks for listening.

 

…At this point, what have we got left to lose?

 

…If I ever actually learn to speak Spanish with this app, you’ll be the first one I speak it to.

 

…It took me a while to get here, but I finally made it. I shoved the fentanyl in a drawer.

 

…We need some noise. Anything to drown out the hurt.

 

…It can’t possibly be that complicated. I mean…

 

…Would it really make a difference if we had more information?

 

…I’m not sure I want to know. Do you?

 

…Whatever pseudonym you end up using, make it a clever one.

 

…Have I told you how much I love Lucy? Right now she looks like a comma curled inside her blanket, twelve inches from my ankle.

 

…It’s a new year. Best not to let go of that new year feeling of hopefulness. Maybe the start of every month should be the start of a new year. Maybe every day should.

 

…Bob Saget? Really??

 

…It’s only day 10, but I’ve been pretty good about sticking with my resolutions. How about you? 

The only thing is, I don’t know why I don’t submit anymore.

 

…Well it happens all the time. Guess I am broken by design.

 

…“I could not have been with someone who was not a writer.” Joan Didion

 

…And this…

https://aleteia.org/2020/01/02/20-year-old-filmmaker-wins-award-for-powerful-1-minute-film-about-marriage/?fbclid=IwAR1_D14RNzKnV9D-ILvpIko3HwkUbl8aY6WW34xo1Ni8BPiyTdeiOBJLxDE

 

…Don’t worry, I’ll help you remember.

...Feeling a little blue today, so I'm keeping it short and not so sweet. 

 —I FEEL CLOSEST TO GOD WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU

 

…Happy Friday, happy first weekend of the new year.

I hope yours is enchanted.

 

…I hope I can get to sleep at some point.

It’s hard when you’ve put away the bottle.

 

…Let’s shoot for fewer peaks and valleys. What say you?

 

…Here are some promises I made to myself:

 

Resolutions 2022

 

Exercise no less than 3/4 times a week

Close rings everyday

30 minutes of Spanish per day

Submit 15 pieces a week 

Write for at least 4 hours every day

Twitter at least 3 times a week

 

How about you?

 

…I think this might require an FDA approval, or at least a waiver from someone with a nice cravat.

 

…These are hard times for dreamers.

 

…It feels as if everyone has COVID now. I know, directly or indirectly, over 100 people grappling with it.

 

…A fundamental truth is nobody makes it on their own.

 

…If you think about it, it’s all the same fight. We’re just wearing different uniforms.

 

…The snow is so beautiful, but after a week, it becomes a nuisance and an obstacle.

 

…I’ve been having a hard time getting Dopesick out of my mind, how people can actually be that evil.

 

…I wish I could answer every question I’m asked truthfully. I guess the thing is, I don’t think you’d like the truth all that much.

 

…”Welcome back,” is something you never want to hear from a pawnbroker.

 

…”We haven’t heard from you yet,” is something you never want said when the person saying it is looking your way.

 

…It’s either jail, or the morgue, said my good friend Cabernet.

 

…As my therapist says, “It’s never too late to apologize.  It’s never too late to (…)”

 

…If I’m being honest, crying could be a good option.

 

…Other than “Goodbye”, my least favorite word is “sure.” Sure isn’t No, but it’s not exactly Yes either.

 

…All of my best friends, but one, pretty much agree with my thoughts on things. This one often objects to my opinions and gets me thinking differently. 

 

…It’s funny how you can see someone you’ve missed, and then two days after having seen them, you miss them doubly.

 

…Fountains Of Wayne had it right when they sang: I better get my shit together, cause I can’t live like this forever.

 

…It’s always the things we don’t say that return as ghosts.