You Don't Even Know  

You don't even know it, but this starts now. It starts the way it ended -- without much fanfare or fuss -- in the quiet of a room that's seen better days, and certainly much better times. It starts because the walls have been slowly breaking down whether we knew it or not. Whether I knew it or not. Now I know. I know that the poems I've written have all been tiny fictions of a bigger fiction I've been feeding. The story of my life. It's time to strip away all the pretenses, the plasticine facades, the sanctimonious bullshit that's invaded the way I wake, work, eat, move, fuck, rant, rave, scream. Of course that's not true either. I do little else but work these days. Who the hell has time to scream anyway? This starts because I'm tired of creating fiction in my head. It's time to write down the truth. And the truth is, this has nothing and everything to do with you. The truth is, I have no idea what I'm doing any more. I can't tell any of you. You know it, and still you watch me squirm in the uncomfortable silences I once promised myself I'd never return to. Do I sound angry, bitter, ungrateful, and resentful? Yes, man! Hell, yes! The only thing I wonder is this: why the hell has it taken me this long to admit it? Putang ina! Bahala na! No more pretending. I'm through with it.