I have something to get off my chest. It's been lingering around for awhile, but it's a wound I must heal. A toxic cesspool of my own I must clear up, if you will, so read at your own risk, with or without, the absence of judgment.
Let’s get this out of the way and upfront before we get started.
I fucking love you.
I’m not pulling this out of my ass like some magic rabbit out of a top hat. You don’t need to magnify your screen to see if you are reading this clearly.
I care not who you are, what your problems might possibly be, or how much you dislike the Auburn Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Led Zeppelin, or Widespread Panic, and even if you listen to too much pop-rock-hip-hop-outlaw-techno-country music.
I love you no matter what your unique culture, political affiliation, criminal background, chosen profession, skin color, waist size, tan line, hairstyle, eye color, height, weight, belief system, faithlessness, religious fanaticism, sexual orientation, addictive personality, rebellious lifestyle, or even if you watch Fox News twenty four hours a damn day. And last but not least, even if you don’t put enough vanilla almond creamer in your coffee.
I fucking love you.
I love you even if you disagree with me. I especially love you if you ghosted me, or made me question my worth. I love the fuck out of you.
I also love you if I, myself, ghosted, and/or blocked you too. I love you even if you think I’m the biggest asshole on the face of the planet, or just a great big dildo of a frigging idiot.
So, read my lips, even though you can’t possibly do that at the moment.
I fucking love you.
A lot of people will tell you that love is a warm squishy feeling you get when Marvin Gaye croons away to “Let’s Get It On” over the mental jukebox blaring within your humid libido.
But love is so much more powerful than the lyrics of that intimate song.
If you ask me, love is exactly like electricity. It can be so damn devastating because of how wild and rampant it is. Yet, it is delicate enough to run through plastic coated wires behind your walls to bring light to the inner workings of your comfy home. And at the same time, untamable enough to light your ass up like the grand finale of your favorite fireworks show on the fourth of July.
Which is probably why the unfettered power of love often offends people. Some out there simply cannot fathom how powerful the idea of love can be.
It does not compute in their minds. It is not encoded into their DNA.
Malignant hatred and pointing fingers, they agree with perfectly fine, fighting amongst each other and projected anger too. Yes to them, such toxic things make perfect fucking sense. Self-centered behavior is completely logical in their mind. But to love others’ unconditionally no matter what.
Nope, not a snowflake's chance in hell;)
But even the most hapless of those who have lost all hope for humanity cannot win the war against love. It is too goddamn astronomical. Too absolutely divine and most often to damn dense to make sense of it. But it's always been too overpowering to be overlooked. Yes, trying to evade love is like trying to outrun the sunshine on a hot damn day in an endless field without any shade.
Love is the inspirational surge of momentum for the coming day that we all feel when watching the moon rise with the sunrise. It is the lack of chlorophyll in each dying October leaf. It is forging the path for our children, because we are the next ancestors, and we should start acting like it. It's the shade of turquoise and emerald green amongst Lake Tahoe’s crystal blue persuasion in the middle of the summertime. It's the taste of your favorite flavor ice cream on a snowy day, and the wild glint of fire and brimstone in your mother’s eye right before she whoops your eight year old insurgent ass with a wooden spoon.
Yes, love draws the tides to the shore with twinkle toes in the sand right before a tsunami of feelings knocks us down on the floor. It is photosynthetically instrumental in making our internal organs and otherworldly glands communicate organically with one another.
Love is the cop standing on the side of I-580 in Reno holding up rush-hour traffic to make sure all the chickens cross the road doing the speed limit.
Unfortunately though, love isn’t always something that feels all chewy and gooey inside, like what’s in the chocolatey center of a tootsie roll pop.
In fact, sometimes it stings you like a honeybee right between the eyes. Or, it's the feeling you get when your big bare toe crashes into the nearest door frame on your way to the fridge for a midnight snack in the middle of the night.
And so it is, with the pain that accompanies your big bare toe crashing into the door, that love is very much the doorway which opens up humanity to decency and compassion, and it makes this bitter world taste a whole lot sweeter when passed around freely, and without conditions.
It gives your favorite sad song a little empathetic oomph of the hopeful days to come. It makes the vibrant colors of autumn pop. It is the sweet scent of a freshly baked Freedom Cake. It’s the drying ink of a frisky poem spilled on a crisp white sheet, and the large chunks of heirloom tomato simmering away in a ceramic pot of rustic Italian gravy.
So I write this for anyone who feels down in the dumps as of late, albeit alone and scared. I write this for anyone who thinks that life has failed them miserably, much like my geometry teacher did to me in the tenth grade, which mind you, expedited my headfirst dive into all things against authority.
And If you get nothing else out of these somewhat well strung together words, know that you’re loved by someone out there, even if they forget to tell you as much as you would like them too.
Now close your eyes.
Breathe deep a few times. The oxygen that feeds your lungs is an embodiment of love. The unseen jolt of coast to coast energy that powers said lungs, also embodied with love. The electrical impulses within your creative mentality’s neurological pathways; love.
The way these pixels illuminate your mind on this little screen. The way you feel when someone gives you a hug, followed up with the foreplay of a metaphoric kiss on the forehead.
Love, love, love, and more love.
But here’s the catch. Love wouldn’t mean a goddamn thing if you only gave it to people who you thought so readily deserved it.
What about the people who act like total dickheads on a daily basis? They need love as much as anyone else, if not more than them.
So let us choose to love these people too.
I’m talking about the jerkwads who leave their servers a five percent tip on a five hundred dollar check. Or the kid who was listening too loudly to Tik Tok on his cellphone in the serenity of a quiet library.
Hell, I can't help but even love anyone who drives twenty-five in the fast lane on the interstate, thereby disregarding the standards of decency set forth by that of which an impatient society lives and dies by.
All the while altering the swift and peaceful morning commute of every man, woman, and child on their way to school, into the tardiness of pure absolute misery, causing some of us to shout obscenities into the thin air of the universe, which in turn, we follow that up with the good ole glorious universal symbol which symbolizes fuck you—simply known as the finger—at the next red light.
Not that I am bitter about my commute to Reno to pick up a cake for work this fine and dandy morning by any means.
But what good can love truly do if one can’t love the cruel? Like the man who kicks kittens? Or the unstable woman who tried to drown her puppies in the river wearing her favorite sweater. The hopeful of heaven inmates on death row, the bitcoin soul hackers, the heart breakers, the serial murders of passion, and last, and soon to be least, the greedy steely eyed business men and the atrocious politicians they have tucked away in the front pocket of their gold lined sport coat.
If love is a choice, then I have no other choice but to love these people too.
Except for child rapists, fuck them. Those kind deserve a special place six feet below with only a splintered broomstick to wipe their ass with on the toilet of eternal hell.
And just as well, because love, like my last name, is a choice. I choose to love the man who sent me a message a while on back, telling me just what “a terrible writer I was for using too many obscenities.”
This is a man who couldn’t even begin to begin to explain why he felt this way, but felt compelled to tap out a disheartening message to me just the same. Right around Christmas time nonetheless.
Truthfully, I don’t even know what he was angry about.. I hardly even know the man. But then, I guess it doesn’t really matter at all how well I know him. Because people these days are just all-around self-centered and mad, mainly at themselves and the choices they have made.
I guess, unfortunately, somewhere along the way, incivility found it’s way into the already filthy drinking water.
But I'm certain this man will read these words written here today, and when he does, I want him to know one fucking thing.
I’d be lying if I said your message didn’t royally piss me off, or even threaten my will to continue with writing.
It did.
I’m just a regular guy like you. I get my feelings hurt just like anyone else would. And just because I like to write on the side doesn’t mean I’m some sort of literary superhero made of bulletproof graphite.
I’m just as allergic to the kryptonite of externally projected bullshit as anyone else is.
Because this brain and body of mine are only pieces of withering flesh. My DNA is wired to fray eventually, just like everyone else's is. My fast-twitching muscles are all constructed by thinly sliced fiber threads. My bones snap easily. So smack me around, elbow me in the heart and soul all you want.
Because sticks and stones may break my bones but disheartening words bounce right the fuck up off of me.
And guess what, old man, you are the origin of my pain, you caused me more than anyone else ever has when you abandoned my mother and I, who is mind you, is the sweetest goddamn woman in the world, when I was a mere two years old.
But do not mistake my pain for your victory. You do not win.
In fact, you’re still stuck at the beginning in the Game of Life because you forgot how to spin the goddamn flywheel when it comes to being a real man.
And in this aggravating and unpredictable age, devoid of logic and reason, riddled with freshly baked chaos on a daily basis, I can only control one thing.
Which is what I choose to write, and who I choose to love.
And as much as I’ve tried not to, I have no choice in the end but to forgive, and to love you.
Because in the end old man, I have but four words for you....
Love always fucking wins.
Love,
The son you never had,
Ryan
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