Disclaimer: Don't read if you are related to me.

     Life is so chaotic right now.  Every time I sit down to write about it, my mind overloads and freezes.  It's like when you try and remember a movie title you have not thought about for years, you can feel your brain searching for the information it knows exists within the confines of it's cells; yet in the midst of digging for it, you feel your brain go blank.  There is so much to dig through these days.  So many revelations, experiences and uncovered truths about my character that the idea of writing about a single one of them stuns my mind, my heart.  
     I could start with the accomplished Bosnian writer who in less than 72 hours provided me with a level of intimacy I have been searching for my whole life.  I could start with him, start with how he worshiped my body for hours, cupped water in his hands and tenderly poured it into the small of my back so that he could have a drink or the kindness of his words that caused me to barrel out the door, crying because I could not face such beauty.  Within those 72 hours, I felt a shift in my soul so profound I ran away.  I cannot write about it.  Not yet. .
     I could write about the nude beach I visited just two days ago, about how I indulged in the delicacy of flesh for several hours with several beautifully sculpted men.  I could write about the shame I fight off when I lay my head down at night for enjoying the type of sex that I do.  For exploring the cold wet floors of orgies or the degrading warm sand of a nude beach.  I could write about these things, but how do I even begin to explain how I have devalued sex, something I used to hold sacred, and how I cannot handle real intimacy without trembling.  Finding the words to express the roots and fallacies that burn within me feels like I have been told that somewhere in the ocean is a grain of salt, and that I must find it before it deludes.  Sometimes I see the grain of salt in the ocean of my heart that possesses the words but before I can pick it up and dry it off, it deludes into the canyons of my wet finger tips and it is gone.
     I could write about how every important person in my life, within the past year has ruthlessly expressed how I have become a miserable son of a bitch who has alienated himself apart from any and all things healthy.  I could attempt to write about how the love of my life left me because I am insecure, selfish, alcohol dependent, pessimistic in addition to having no real concept of the intimacy I demand but cannot reciprocate.  I have faced these truths in my head but cannot write them.  When I write them it becomes real; and if the bottles I have devoured in the past few months speak volumes on anything it is this; I can't handle reality. 
     My reality for some reason doesn't match up with others.  My reality is lonely and misunderstood.  I exist in a frame of mind I have decided to be in that demands everyone be subjected to my vulgarity my lack of consideration and my general disregard for the comfort levels of others.  It is not that I don't care about the comfort level of others but for instance; just yesterday a co-worker of mine asked me, "what did you do on your day off?"  Not thinking about it, I answered the question truthfully, "I got my ass pounded on a beach by some body builder named Rodney."  I said it as lackadaisically as I would have if I told her that I had a plain bagel with unsalted butter on it for breakfast.  To my surprise, it did not go over well, and she looked at me with horror.
     I don't mean to offend people, but I don't think people realize the weight of the questions they ask; and while I know asking, "how are you today?" is more of a formality of human interaction rather than a genuinely posed question, I still find it to be invasive and inappropriate, because everytime I've answered the question honestly people are somehow offended that I actually told them the truth.   "I'm terribly hungover from the gay bar I went to last night" I might say or, "I'm really good, I'm going on a date later with a Bosnian God!" is somehow an inappropriate answer.  I have been told that I have no social tact, that I am rude, disgusting and offensive because I don't at all respect social norms or comforts.  The idea of blending in, of not laughing at a loud fart or not telling someone during dinner about an article I read about forced abortions in China, or even something as simple as not smoking in a non smoking sidewalk area, make me want to kill myself at the total loss of self I would have to consciously cut out. 
     My mother always says, "if everyone in a room is saying you're an asshole, then you're probably an ass hole."  Taking into consideration that everyone I know, including my mother is telling me what an asshole I am, I am beginning to wonder if they may not be joking, that I might maybe be a putrid asshole; and that I might want to consider shutting the fuck up every once in a while, if not entirely.   I think I'm funny, and there was a time when other people thought I was funny.  It's just not funny anymore.  My humor has become so dark that it is not humor anymore, it is cynicism and comes from a place in my heart that is screaming at the world to go fuck itself.   It's really very Charles Bukowski of me, but then again, Bukowski was a miserable drunk who's only redeeming quality was the beauty of his writing.
     The sad part of all of this is that only the people who truly know me see the side of me that is repulsive.  For it is the people who love me the most that I unleash the most onto.  I have fun, I go out for drinks and laugh often with co-workers or friends or aquatances, the Ryan they see is funny, put together, sure of himself and kind; and at my core I am all of those things.  But I have not showed that to the people close to my heart in so long they have left begun to turn away.  I always thought that I don't have to say things like "I appreciate you, or I love you" because they should already know I think them, plus for some reason my lips don't like forming those words.  Almost as much as they don't like forming the movements necessary to say I'm sorry.
     But I am.  I am so very sorry.  I am sorry to my mother for not seeing her efforts and her pride in me that at times, has been almost impossible to defend.  I am sorry to my best friend Jen for not telling her how proud I am of her, and how grateful I am to have such a beautiful soul in my life.  A soul that has on more than one occasion saved my life.  I am sorry to all of the people I cut out of my life for fear that they might say, "I told you so."  I am sorry to my family for running so far away from their love that they do not call anymore.  I am sorry to Kevin for not treating his love as tenderly as he, for a short time, cradled my heart.  I am sorry to myself for allowing the damage I have endured to shape me into a concentrated ball of fear and distrust in the world. 
It is time to change, to change in all the ways I have fought off for years.  It's time to grow up.  It is time to allow happiness to fill my lungs again.

Through pierced quivering lips, and lungs full of release, I am sorry.
   

Bosnia.

My heart goes off tempo to the though of smelling his neck, to the thought of the moment when you are making love with someone so hard you forget to breath; and you inhale so deeply into their neck you can smell the small particle of soap behind their ear, forgotten by yesterdays shower water and the mixture of spit from one another.  His neck looks like it would smell like dark leather, after shave and sea salt.  His neck is the kind of neck that's pours are spread out enough to make goose bumps look like warm and white braille. I once read braille like that; but I didn't understand it.