I wronged my wife. She wants me to do whatever it is she needs me to do so that it feels right between us. I don’t think she knows what that is and I certainly don’t know what that is. I do know that it has to do with the encroachment of my space until she gets what she wants not knowing what it really is.
I only want to help my wife said. It’s not helping I said. Do you want to take a walk she asked. In twenty minutes I said. I’m not sure I want to take a walk she said. Do you still want to take a walk. No I said. I thought about taking a walk on my own. Where would I go while my wife lies hurt alone in the dark? I dislike going out without an intention. I become self conscious and deplete myself. Usually no one bothers with me unless I spend my money on something and of late I’m loath to give my money away to feel part of society. It seems that everyone I deal with in my day wants my money. A long lost friend called me recently. It was really good to hear from him. He has all these plans that aren’t congruent with his family. I felt suspicious that he wanted money to fund his idea to help children in Africa. Of course he didn’t ask. He may call again. He may be working himself up to ask for money. I disliked myself for thinking that he wanted my money. I don’t know what to feel. It does feel like the only thing anyone is interested in is money.
Does sex exist when two lovers have no money I asked myself.
I think of my wife as my wife. I never used to do that before. I’m scared said my wife. I don’t feel right in my stomach. My wife has lost weight. I can see the face I knew when she was in her twenties. She looks vulnerable and very attractive. She sits down next to me which she has begun to do every day now for the past week and speaks with emotion.
I feel like I’m going to lose you to the dark side she said.
I have learned not to be scared of myself. I can’t worry about my wife’s sad feelings about me when they are also about herself. I worry about both of us not only myself. In my dream I was fucking a woman, I think she may have been my wife, she looked like she could have been my counterpart, in the matriarch’s bed. The matriarch had a large round mass of grey black hair and consoled me. She entertained the guests in another room. The door of her bedroom was open. I had withdrawn my penis. She said that she didn’t want me because I had wanted a younger woman.
I thought that maybe I could escape inside myself. The Doctor on Madison avenue had laughed
when he said that he couldn’t think his way out of it.
My mother before she died said that writing had saved her life. She always felt that she was at death’s door. No one had reviewed her beautiful books. We had both laughed about it. We couldn’t have given a fuck about the critics. No one in the right mind writes for them.
I like to run. When I exercise it seems that my life is consumed by it. I run in the park near my house in Portland Oregon where a man recently was raped by two men.
They didn’t want his money. When I run amongst the tumescent trees and the Willamette river that looks like sheet metal I feel happy. I don’t want to hurt anyone.