Standing on that soggy dock, silent save for the too-loud lapping of the waves upon the dinghies, you tell me you feel our roles have been reversed. I chuckle softly, my stiff upper lip concealing it's quivering bottom counterpart. Of course our roles have been reversed, I say to myself, but you didn't have to say it out loud.

My feet and hands are busy, nervously tapping the planks of the pier while I think of something clever or insightful to say. God, I must look a fucking crack addict. Words aren't coming, so I muster a pitiful cough and light up another stupid cigarette. Sure, I say. You can have one of mine.

We both steal nervous glances as the fog slowly rolls in, eyes rarely meeting. When they do, I try my best to convey some mixture of longing and remorse without looking pathetic. But all my eyes are met with is pity. A tender, platonic pity oozing from green eyes made black by the night. I've never been on the receiving end of a Mother Theresa stare before. In fact, I don't think anyone has ever felt truly sorry for me, and it's just awful that you're the first.

I've got to be getting on home, I say.

Faded camouflage hunting hat? Check.
Scraggly beard and meth head complexion? Check.
Fucking sweatpants in a book store? Check.
Driving away in a mini-van? Lord help him, check.

Seriously, Luke. Call up Jenny Garth, ask to borrow a few thousand dollars you know she's got stashed away and get it together, pal. I mean, shit man! You were a nod and a wink away from banging ANY chick in Hollywood less than a decade ago. What happened?!

You ran this town, dude! Now you're wandering into chain book stores, perusing the "buy-one-get-one" table, settling on bargain rack Ansel Adams coffee table books and driving off in a Windstar. Even Ian Ziering, that fratty looking blond shit from BH90210, is getting work and he was the biggest tool on the show!

Far be it from me to give any sort of personal financial advice to anyone, let alone a former teen idol who succeeded despite an inexplicably large forehead, but you've gotta have some dough left over after starring on show that ran for 298 episodes. Right? Invest in a decent wardrobe and call the E! network. I'm sure they'd be thrilled to have another washed up actor giving commentary on the Dancing With the Stars post-game show.

Get help, Luke Perry, and stop making me feel sorry for shitty celebrities who come into Border's.

Oh, I was once caught in the tendrils of good-grace and romance
And never thought twice to tempt the wheels of fortune and chance

But luck, if you could call it that, remains a non-cyclical force
Where once I would land safe and sound is now a much more precarious place

Backlit by reds and greens and blues, picturesque and postcard views
Shadows drowned by hype-men and hooker's "how-do-you-do's?"

There's something here for him and her, but not a lot for me and you
If I could, you know, I'd bridge the gap and leave this place for you, too.

It's all so perfect and oh, so quiet inside my head.

Inside my head, our busy hands have ceased toiling over our many obligations, however slight they may be, and have since become relaxed and steady.

There are no barriers, be they spatial or metaphorical, inside my head. What duties we have to perform and what responsibilities we have to ourselves and others have slowly dripped away, leaving us to pick up from where we left off.

But the goings on inside my head are simply that; inside my head. This thick, cro-magnon noodle of mine makes every attempt to simply avoid the tragedy of reality.

He's still there.

Of course I have no right to assume he wouldn't be. Words and sounds and intangible heart-string-tuggings are, for all intents and purposes, short-range technology. Whatever bait and lures I possess don't hold a candle to the intimacy of immediacy. I'm Kodak to his Polaroid film.

And, as the saying goes... location, location, location.

He's probably great. He's probably incredible! He's probably everything I'm not.

That said, all I can say is this:

I am what I am.
What I've got, I've got.
Everything I had, I never lost.

The question is:

Is that enough for you?

I'm so paranoid.

I see walls behind gates behind cages, all with explicit intentions. Decade old insecurities and newfound indemnities are the least of my worries, and keeping you interested in this old war horse is my modus operandi.

A wicked mix of circumstance and distance separates the prime of our lives, but fuck the twilight. I'd sooner tell you now than then, and I plan on nothing less. Move me away from the tired cliches of honesty and verbosity and speed me ever faster toward the language only lips and interlocked fingers speak.

I want to say the things I've never said, but you wouldn't believe me if I tried. After all, you and I both know I don't have the right to even look you in the eye. But pass the time and pay ever more attention to me, if not for you, then just for me.

I'd kill to know he knew, but I'll live to know you know. Please trust me.

Boxing underwater, still trying to keep that stupid mass of muscle and sinew from jumping from my chest. I'm blurting words of a barely cogent variety, bobbing and weaving through punch-drunk mental fog. I once believed that my words were my weapons, a chink-less armor to protect me from myself. Now, for better or for worse, I don't fight at all.

Move me ever faster toward the end of the rabbit hole.

I can see them in my mind, though I don't have much to go on. They're faded ghosts of puppy-love and times when it all went right, but I cobble together what little I've got left to get me through the day. It does, but I've so many days yet to come.

Mental asthma, floods of fantasy and pinky-promise tales of romance; the stories of my life. But reach for me and hope for the best, though your own bloody mass of muscle might tell you otherwise.

I'm boxing underwater, and here is where I'll stay.
Just tell me that I'm fine, that you'll pull me up someday.

There's a great divide between you and I, though it's a gap I've faced before. You wouldn't think it, just looking at me, but I'm well-versed in those minute, ever-present thoughts that drive you mad and wrench your stomach through and through.

I won't claim to be at ease with the way I feel right now. The trivial pursuit that is my existence on this paperfaced coast is brightened only by what may simply be another wistful pipe-dream. In my mind, I'm already yours, even if you've got a loose thread hanging from your beat-up, olive green sweatshirt. You know, it's funny... I feel as though I left my hopes and dreams on the East coast.

So what the hell am I doing here?

Another boring day, another barely-earned dollar. Another restless day, another sleepless night. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, though I'm willing to wager it also makes the mind forget. But I can't have that, this time.

Not again.

You're in my dreams (day and night).
I hate that he's there, that I'm not.
I hate the space between us.

But you know all this. I've done the dirty work this time and tossed the guessing game to the curb. My job now is to make sure you don't forget it. I need to show you what a couple years and a hell of a lot of elbow grease has made of me.

Come Visit Sunny California!!

Your hurried breath says more than can you bring yourself to, standing on the familiar tile walk of what used to be your house.

Your hurried breath is partly caused by the bitter cold and the cigarette smoke in your lungs, but it mostly caused by the familiar feelings for what used to be the boy you loved.

The one standing in front of you, staring at the familiar tile walk, breathing the same thin, nicotine filled air as you, trying like mad to steal control from the runaway train of memory and emotion gripping his brain at that moment.

The one you loved.

-----------------------

You loved this boy. This monstrous boy. This wonderful, awful, complex boy had your heart-strings pulled taut, but had no reservations about letting them go completely on a whim.

And this angered you, but you never showed it. You were disgusted with yourself and with the boy, but the balancing act you played everyday wouldn't let you do a damn thing about it.

-----------------------

Now, standing on the tile walk, you're grown up. The acrid, yellow smoke floats toward the first starlit sky he's seen in months, and you think "perhaps he's changed." It's not the first time wishful thinking has at the same time frightened and impassioned you.

But whatever passions reignite or however many emotions come rushing to the surface when you see his blue eyes meet yours, you keep yourself in check.

Barely.

These past few nights, sleepless and fraught with frivolous back-and-forth musings, have been a wake-up call, to say the least. Dependability and safety are the virtues extolled by those who can never truly be happy, and you know it. Those dopes will always ponder the past and wonder "what-if", and you know it.

You know it.

So take the plunge, make a change, shake shit up! It's never easy, and now is no different. Your nostrils flare and your lips smack as you try to say what needs to be said. To do what needs to be done.

But tonight is not the night. Maybe in 6 months time, but tonight is not the night. You stand there, staring at your feet and waiting for the night to graciously end its hold on the world, while the boy you loved grapples with his own decisions.

Ultimately, the boy will leave, wondering what more he can do, and for better or worse, he'll be back again. Tonight may not be the night, but the boy you loved will forever keep trying to trade in his past for the present. Charging toward a goal that, for all his fragile little heart knows, may be entirely unattainable.

He's relentless, this boy.

This boy you love.

*based on a true story

I'd love to let you crawl inside my head, curl up with all the dusty tomes filled with regret and paranoia I've got rattling around in there.

But I could never let you. It wouldn't be right.

See, only liars and cheats get more than a second chance and I don't plan on having you mistake me for either one of those things any more.

I've spent too much time living somewhere between right and wrong, thinking of myself as a compassionate, intelligent person one minute, and a self-righteous, callous monster the next. "Am I somebody she could love?" I asked myself.

"Somebody she should love?"

I didn't think so, until you said I was. Not in so many words, of course, but it's clear to me now that I'm Ready.

Willing.
Waiting.
Raring to go.

Ready.

I don't give this out to just anyone, darling, so buckle up.

No, no. The timing just isn't right. Circumstance and distance seem perpetually teamed up against me, only now they don't have my indignant attitude and cynicism to fight. Just a fucked-up, broken heart.

But I had my chance. I had a hundred chances! I had a thousand chances and now I have to see you smile at me again.

Even if I still had an outside shot, I don't know if I'd have it in me to take it because coming back from the brink isn't my forte anymore.

Hell, even a punch-drunk fighter knows when to give up fall quietly to the mat.

"I remember when you were like 5 years old, during pee-wee hockey practice, you had to go pee, so I took you into the YMCA bathroom. They didn't have individual urinals, just the long trough thing, so seeing another guy's dong was inevitable.

Anyway, while you were going, a big black guy came in and went next to you, and because of how short you were, you got a good look at his thing, which was huge. You were just staring at it, for a good 30 seconds.

I remember thinking, 'Oh god... just don't say anything!', but you didn't. All you said when we left the bathroom was, 'Dad... did you SEE that thing?!'"