The Cold

I step outside and I am immediately aware of her presence. She comes against me slowly at first; twining her fingers into mine, setting her hair to brush against my face. She is love, lonely, and comfort. She is unforgiving, without mercy, and quick to embrace.
“It has been a long time.” I say as she becomes more comfortable with me. She is silent though, as if she missed this in my absence. I feel uncomfortable as she claims me and I know I have places I should go. I should head to the car, or walk back inside, but I don't.
And here we are. She whispers to me. Her whispers flow over my ears, her fingers remember my face. I need her in a way that can not be comprehensibly described. I've missed her and she's kept a place for me. A place others would come to and ruch out of just as soon, but I stay, and breathe her in.
Memories tide in my mind. Three in the morning, me only 16, bare feet against her floor. I look up and see the smoke from the wood stove form a ceiling over me. The moonlight filters through the canopy to show the trees around me. It shimmers in the night, and as I remember it, that was when I lost myself to her. I breathed her in until it hurt. I wore nothing but my jeans when I came out that night, and she kissed my shoulders. She brushed her lips down my arms and wrapped her arms around my bare waist.
I was enamored with her. How had I lived without seeing her beauty? Or more correctly; without feeling her beauty. My breathe burned with her touch, and I longed to stay with her, only it was not meant to be. I separated the firewood she had wrapped together and held it against my chest. I took the wood inside to rekindle the fire in the stove and send her away.

Memories ebb. She invites me stay, to continue basking in her quiet beauty. She asks me to see what others hide from. I am at peace when she holds me, but she is a harsh lover and to be with her is to die without waking. So I exhale and see her with that breath. I love to stop and feel her, but I can not stay with her too long. This is part of her beauty. She sees the world in terms of her existence, and knows nothing of my frailty, cares nothing of my temperate frame. All she sees is her desire for companionship. And all I want is to accompany her.
“Always this time of year.” I say and I invite her to walk with me to my car. I don't know that others can understand what we have, what I feel for her, but this is real. Her reality is made plain in the rising of the hair on my neck and arms. What beautiful cold that holds me in the November night. What pure proof of my existence and desire to exist.

It Starts With a Shower

It feels like heaven. Or maybe it is heaven. To anyone else it's a hot shower, but when you are what I am, when you live like I do... It's tens of thousands of drops of liquid heat battering at the tension built in over-strained muscles from hours and days of manual labor.
You lift the pulaski, or ax over your head in one circular arc and bring it down in fluid motion; your hands come together at the base of your tool's handle and you pull causing the blade to slam into the hard packed earth. Sometimes you hit a root, sometimes a stone, and then sometimes, in a warm ray of sunshine, the God you've tried to forget your whole life shows a bit of that long missing mercy and you strike clear dirt.
I work for a week at a time in the woods and only come in on the weekends. I work cutting trails with my hands and arms and tools. I swing for a ten hour day in the sun and then sneak into my tent for a 15 degree night. ( my sleeping bag is rated for 20 degrees.)
I work in poison ivy all day and after fitful sleep I wake to it's sweet burning on my legs and arms. I wake up each day and swing and swing and sleep and swing and swing. And on the weekends, on those wonderful moments when I hike out to a cabin with electricity and running water, I shower. I clean my laundry and myself. I take sleeping pills at midnight and crawl into the hot, steaming, burning shower and I let it's torrent give hell to my aches.
At first I stand there not knowing how to react to my body's comfort, but after minutes pass by and I'm washed, I sink against the wall and sit on the shower floor letting the water beat me in my entirety. The shower head is only five feet above the floor, and I was graced with a height of 6' 2”. The floor lets me take in the water without crouching.
If I were a more simple man, and capable of such, I would cry here, but instead I let the water play my tears. I let it hit my shoulders and hair and feel it ride down my face to drip off my nose and chin. I reach up to the faucet from the pooling puddle on the concrete floor and turn the cold down so I can feel the heat more purely.
Time ticks by here and I know that I should get out soon and go to bed. My weary mind needs sleep. I need sleep. Before I got in the shower I threw my clothes in the dryer. After getting out I pull a pair of warm underwear on. I pull on some warm flannel pants, and ready a long sleeve t-shirt. It feels good against my still damp skin. I look in the mirror before I pull the t-shirt over my head and grin to myself. I've lost ten pounds in the last month alone. My abs are carved, “If only there was anyone here to see them.” I laugh to myself.
With the addition of the warm clean shirt, and reassurance that there are no ticks on my back, I finally head to my bed.
After a week of sleeping in a sleeping bag in the frigid night on a slightly sloped stretch of forest floor, with rocks and branches below my tent and therefore my bag, my bed is the only thing I've ever needed. I'm full, I'm clean, I've taken steroids for the poison ivy,and Benadryl to let me sleep through the itching. I close my eyes and wonder what tomorrow will bring.

To Start...

First off, I am obsessed with ellipses. I put them everywhere and in everything I write. In my mind they say, "Here, Will is hesitant to say what he's thinking." or "everyone pauses to consider." but in the real world that's not what they mean.
And I think that's a great place to start this thing. Life and living rarely being about doing the correct thing or doing what we know to be right. We all do our best with what we have and occasionally we just don't care.
I wanted to take this place to share thoughts and ravings. Various writings and hopefully find yet another medium for expression.
I am an unemployed musician looking to become a famous Keytarist- Someone who plays that keyboard thing that hangs around the neck like a guitar.
I have started recording and I will probably post shows and what not as they do or don't happen. Expect satire and cynicism, sarcasm and laughter, tea and sympathy. Expect the worst and hope for the best... And with this we begin the journey, the epic quest that is one man's search for....
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... The American Dream