it's marlowe to you, sucka.

[like neon lights]

I filled out a questionnaire about myself, it was supposed to give me the insight to eternal life, it just gave me a headache instead.

First name: Marlowe
Last name: I won't tell yooouuuu. Or anybody.
Gender: I'm all man.
Date of birth: January 8, 1978.
Age: Old. Twenty six.
Height: 6'1"
Weight: Uh. I have no idea.
Eye color: Brownish-greenish. Hazel, maybe?
Hair color: Brownish.
Favorite color: Black. Ish. I couldn't help it.
Parents: None. I'm an orphan-baby. Aw, pity me and my fucked up life. Hurhur.
Siblings: Don't you read?!
Marital status: Widower. Leave it there.
Children: Uh, none that I know of.
Sexual preference: What a question! My preference is not to care anymore.
Hometown: Paris, France. Don't ask me where my accent went, I worked long and hard on that.
Occupation: Professional bum with money.
Virtues: Prone to committing random acts of kindness, pleasant, easily talked to, not condescending, able to play many instruments, artistically talented to a splendid degree, appreciating the finer things in life, able to read people accurately, never taking anything for granted.
Vices: Alcohol, women, smoking, tattoo addiction, forgetfulness, laziness, tendancy to up and leave and not come back, tendancy to up and leave and come back thinking everybody will be welcoming, restless, too quick to get into relationships, too easy in falling in love, hard to get to know, a liar.




<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 02, 2004 08:07 PM: Message edited by: you make me shallow ]</font>

[like neon lights]

"I think it might be best if we don't see eachother anymore, Marlowe... no, don't say anything. Just listen-- okay? It isn't that I don't love you, God knows I do. You're the only man who's ever...ever...you're the only man I've ever felt this way about. That isn't what scares me. What scares me is that you don't talk about yourself, it's like you never existed before me and I know you did. What don't you want me to know? What went so wrong that you can't even tell me about it? I don't understand. I've heard stories about you though, from people that I've never met before. They know who you are, they know where you are. What's wrong, Marlowe? No! You can't leave, you can't go-- you aren't! Please! Just listen, please just sit down and listen."

Relationships never lasted with Marlowe. He was either too clingy or too aloof, too romantic or too blaise, too Marlowe or not Marlowe enough. There was a clause somewhere, written in the law of universe, that he did not know about... and it obviously stated that he was never to be happy in his lovelife--or maybe that he was never to have one at all.

"No, Marla. It always ends this way."

He never meant to be as cryptic as he came off, but the way of the world was the way it was supposed to be and not even Marlowe could change it. All he could do was paint it and watch as the portrait decayed with age and got lost to time. Marlowe himself was timeless, though no one ever seemed to notice that. He never aged, he never fell ill (except that one time, but it was a rather long story), he never came into bad spirits. There was nothing to be sour-spirited about in the world, nothing was ever so damning that a smile couldn't waiver it. He knew, by now he had to know, or all of this time would have been worth nothing.

In the fray, along the line somewhere, Marlowe had lost many things about himself. His age, his last name, his hometown, his accent, his mind. They were strewn behind him, like a popcorn trail gone wrong, and he couldn't backtrack to pick up the pieces because the bridge was out and it was a ten million foot drop. It didn't matter anymore, he didn't need to tell people where he was from (Iowa was his answer if they insisted), he made up an age and never pretended to have any semblance of sanity left in his body. The way he operated, the pictures he painted-- neither made sense, but everyone adored them. It was easy to come across as flakey instead of worn out. It was easy to smile all the time, even when he wanted to collapse on the spot. It was better to make people comfortable, easier to get them to open up, if he was just Marlowe The Crazy Wandering Artist; a man with no worries, who lived for the present and left the past (though unintentionally most times) behind him.

"You're so refreshing to be around, Marlowe! All you ever do is smile. Nothing ever gets to you, does it?"

"It isn't worth my time to let it get to me." He'd just shrug away his worries, plaster on an easy smile, and pretend that there weren't ten thousand proverbial little demons trying to eat him alive.

That was the way of his world and he didn't want to change it.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 17, 2004 10:42 PM: Message edited by: like neon lights ]</font>

[like neon lights]

A typical entry in Marlowe's journal:

I miss my hair. I miss Millisa and our walks. She was the best dog ever. I miss being in love. I miss having someone to talk to.

I miss making sense.

A typical letter written by Marlowe:

Hi, how are you? I'm fine. I don't know what town I'm in, but I'm doing all right. I was thinking about you all day and decided a letter would be best. I'm sorry for the paint smudges, I just got done doing a splatter thing and it got all over. I can't remember why I decided to, but it's great. I hope you're well. Write back, please.

After thorough analysis of his various entries and transcripts, Marlowe had come to one conclusion-- but he couldn't remember what it was.

[like neon lights]

"Mister...Marlowe, is it?"

"Uh yeah. How is she?" His fingers were bruised, contorted from the hours spent wringing them between his knees. From the expression on the lab rat's fat, he could tell. Right away, he could tell.

"Unfortunately, sir, we were unable to resuscitate your wife. The knife entered at such an angle that it ruptured her diaphragm and the internal bleeding it caused was just...uncontrollable."

"Are you kidding me?"

"No sir, I'm sorry. I wish I was."

"...I wish you were too."

The world around him washed out into white fuzz, television static that lodged in his ears and behind his pupils. His knees buckled in a catastrophic display of despair and even when they cracked with the cold, alabaster tile, the bruises took days to cause him any pain. There was no hurt in the world greater than the one that enveloped him a sickening hug, that forced out the air in his lungs and brought tears to his eyes. This was the kind of pain that never left a person. It was going to stick to the bottom of his shoes, a perpetual gummy sorrow, hampering his progress for the rest of time.

"It's important to know that this isn't your fault, though. This could happen to anyone." The doctor lent him a shaky hand to still a sobbing shoulder, like it would make any semblance of difference.

What could change the facts now? He was alone. A jinx was meant to be alone, to suffer through a world that never understood him for the rest of time, to know that he had killed the only thing in his life that had ever brought him joy. Be it accidental or not, it was entirely his fault.

They always said Marlowe was normal before Lindsey died... that afterward, he was half a soul with only half of his sanity left intact.

He didn't argue.

[like neon lights]

Excerpt of Marlowe's journal-- six years prior.

[i]I am lackluster in a world full of shiny diamonds. I am chipped, cracked, unpolished, unwanted, and of no value. I am Marlowe, and though many believe it to be my name, (thusly they call me that) they are mistaken. Marlowe was what they called me at drama practice in highschool, Marlowe was what they called me in soccer practice. I am only half of a person, with only half a name... the latter half. Though no one ever does catch on, I suppose it's hardly worth it to waste my breath in telling them. I wouldn't want anyone to call me anything different, it's been my label since (what feels like) before time began.

They say I didn't kill Lindsey, that she should have been paying more attention to what I was doing before she flung herself at me. I remember watching the shock on her face as she watched the horror on mine. I don't think I had ever hurt anyone before that, not physically anyway, intentionally or otherwise. I shouldn't have been using a steak knife to cut an apple, but it's a habit I've got, because they're sharp and it's easier that way. I still shouldn't have been using it. Or maybe she should have known that I always eat my apples that way... I can't decide. Whatever it was, she crumpled and bled all over my feet. Looking back on it, she ruined my best shoes. She ruined everything, in the next three hours, why not my shoes?

Poor Lindsey. I can't even bring myself to visit her grave and it's already been six months, I keep hoping that maybe she'll come back in some random turn of events. Jesus doesn't resurrect people like us. I wonder if she hates me. My therapist says I need to move on and I will, someday I will, she would want it that way. But it's so hard to imagine what moving on will feel like. It's kind of hard to imagine not having this pressure on my head, like my skull might pop and shoot my brains out in an atomic mushroom cloud at any second-- just like the cartoons, except my scalp won't restitch and I'll push up daisies for the rest of my afterlife.

I will get over this. I will get over this. I will get over this. It's only a stitch in time, it should not define the entire rest of my life.

At least, that's what the institution's telling me. Maybe I'm being brainwashed. Oh well. It's better than whatever I am right now.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 09, 2004 09:25 PM: Message edited by: you make me shallow ]</font>

[like neon lights]

Cotton-mouthed and fuzzy-eyed, Marlowe stumbled into consciousness with a pounding headache and churning stomach. Carpet inprints on his face, his shirt strewn randomly somewhere-- it took him a minute to realize that he didn't know where he was, or how he'd gotten there. It took him another minute to realize that he did know how he'd gotten there, but he still didn't know where he was. He bumped and muttered his way to the bathroom, filled up the sink with cold water, and stared at himself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes closed out the world and he immersed his face into the makeshift bucket of icewater (which was really just the sink, but he liked to pretend he lived back in the West when sinks were silly thoughts.)

Jaunty hips bumped against the wall once or twice, as he tried to quietly find his shirt and the pack of cigarettes that'd fallen out during his stupor of sleep. He scrawled a random thanks on the back of a piece of pocket paper with a fragment of left over pink oil pastel (sometimes he forgot he put stuff in his pockets) to "Whoever's house this is" and forced himself through the front door and down into the blazing sunlight. It didn't do anything for his hangover.

Halfway disoriented and always Marlowe, the artist finally figured out where he was and shuffled for his house. There was a picture that needed painting and a Solomon that needed finding. They were drinkin' buddies now, man.

[like neon lights]

A few summers ago...

Jolene, my therapist, says I need to start keeping a journal again because it'll subdue my subconscious. It isn't because I'm crazy (or so she says), it's because of the "semi-recent tragedies" that've occurred in my life. After Lena blew her face off, I painted. I had to paint. I saw the whole thing, it made an impression that I needed to throw on the canvas and Jolene paled when she saw them. I remember her face, like it just happened yesterday, when she came into the house. She looked at me like I was crazy, like I had no right to be painting the scenes that bled from my brush; like I could help it. There are corpses burned into my skull: Lindsey's, Lena's, Mark's. I'm a walking fucking parade of pain, that's what I am. One who sings and dances and diverts your attention away from the whole reason with marching bands and giant floats. The reason is that I'm fucked up, too mentally incapacitated to function. The verdict is that I'm all right, because there are shiny instruments playing in the foreground, blocking out the background.

No one ever looks beyond the foreground, not with me. Not even Lindsey. It's always face value, I am always face value and there is no more to me than that. There used to be, but it's gone now. I'm too hollow to have a background, I'm a shell with confetti and smiles obstructing the view into the great abysmal depths.

I'm also apparently a drama queen. I will make a conscious effort against that and work toward moving on with my life. I'm going to move into the house that Lindsey bought before she died, the one we never got around to living in. She loved that old place, I think I owe it to her to live there and plant flowers in the yard and remember her. Not that she's in danger of being forgotten, but I need to move on and stop dwelling on the people who have left me.

Marky overdosed about a week ago, or maybe two now, I can't remember. I'm kind of lost to time again, floating around space in a completely timeless little bubble.

I am a jinx, hexed to outlive the ones I love and never see the light of happiness but in very short intervals.

[like neon lights]

<div style="text-align: center;">Ice-age heat wave, can't complain.
If the world's at large, why should I remain?
Walked away to another plan.
Gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand.
I move on to another day,
to a whole new town with a whole new way.
Went to the porch to have a thought,
Got to the door and again I couldn't stop.
You don't know where and you don't know when,
but you still got your words and you got your friends.
Walk along to another day.
Work a little harder, work another way.

Well uh-uh baby, I ain't got no plan.
We'll float on maybe would you understand?
Gonna float on maybe would you understand?
Well float on maybe would you understand?

The days get shorter and the nights get cold.
I like the autumn but this place is getting old.
I pack up my belongings and I head for the coast,
it might not be a lot but I feel like I'm making the most.
The days get longer and the nights smell green,
I guess it's not surprising but it's spring and I should leave.

I like songs about drifters - books about the same.
They both seem to make me feel a little less insane.
Walked on off to another spot,
I still haven't gotten anywhere that I want.
Did I want love?
Did I need to know?
Why does it always feel like I'm caught in an undertow?

The moths beat themselves to death against the lights,
adding their breeze to the summer nights.
Outside, water like air was great,
I didn't know what I had that day.
Walk a little farther to another plan.
You said that you did, but you didn't understand.

I know that starting over is not what life's about.
But my thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth.
My thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth.
My thoughts were so loud.</div>

[i]Can only women be spinsters? I'm going to be a spinster, maybe I'll have a sex change. It isn't because I want to be, it's because I have to be. I don't know what it is lately. I'm tired of seeing everyone in love, I'm tired of hearing about all of the problems people are having with their relationships. I'm tired of people not taking the chances they're given. Life is too short to suppress everything.

I shouldn't talk, that makes me a hypocrite. I haven't worked toward anything even remotely resembling something more than casual in a long time. It isn't that I don't want to, it's that I haven't found anyone who consumes me yet. I might be off kilter a little (a whole lot) but I know what I want and what I want is not what I'm going to get. I always thought things would be all right, especially after Linsday and Lena and Marky. Especially since I survived them all relatively intact. My sanity isn't as frayed as everybody thinks it is, I just know when it's worth it to invest thought into processes and when it's not. Usually it isn't.

I don't know what I'm expecting to happen, but I feel like an angsty sixteen year old boy who should be writing lame emo poetry about how bad he has it. I don't have it that bad. I don't have it great, but it isn't terrible. I've got friends who care about me. I'm financially secure, I have a house and I'd have a car if I could get a license. I shouldn't complain just because of a few tragedies. Everybody has something that fucks them up. Maybe mine are all over and done with now and it'll be sunny skies from here on in.

Maybe I'm delusional. But at least my hair is growing back.

I need to smoke.

[like neon lights]

It was mid-July and the only reason he even remembered anymore was because of the way the leaves looked. In mid-July the leaves were crisp and burnt; a shade of decay-brown instead of spring-green. They never called it the most beautiful time in the year, not in the desert, because everything died in the summer. It was just so damned hot.

"I can't get up, I'm stuck to this fucking seat." Such vulgar words spilling from a pretty bow-tie mouth never ceased to amaze Marlowe. Lindsey had always had an attitude that he was attracted to, it only seemed fitting that now he was relishing in what he had recently married.

"Should I get a crowbar..." Musing idly, he bent at the waist to lean inside the fast rising car-oven to peck a gentle kiss against her lips. "Maybe a bucket of water--if your sweat leaves a mark, or something gross like that, on my upholstery I'm going to divorce you. I hope you're aware of that."

"Please." Her pouty lips curved into one of her luscious smiles that hypnotized Marlowe everytime she used them. "You wouldn't know what to do without me." Finally peeling her snow white skin away from the black leather interior, she stepped into the hot Nevada sun.

"Be careful, you might melt like a snowcone in Phoenix, you pasty little..." But he trailed off the insults, opting instead for a flirtatious smile and offered hand. "I hope we get to do this forever."

"We will, baby." Her reassurance qualmed every fearful butterfly circling his stomach and placated every doubt that spiraled in his brain. "Soulmates always live happily ever after..."

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

It struck him as almost funny now, when he sat alone in the near-empty mansion, sprawled across the floor in one of the many barren rooms... how was it that he had depended so heavily upon her in the first place? She always made life without her seem impossible, irrelevant. But it wasn't impossible and it wasn't irrelevant; because here he was. Living. Breathing. Eating. Sleeping. He wasn't counting down his days anymore or considering what the bite of a bullet might taste like. He wasn't wondering what might have happened if things were different anymore, he wasn't worried about what the future might hold because he knew it was going to come someday.

Marlowe was done avoiding the inevitable and what the inevitable consisted of now was opening his eyes to see that Lindsey had never been the perfect person he'd made her out to be. Or that she had made herself out to be. It was a sickening thought, one that made his skin crawl and veins prickle-- maybe it'd never really been love at all... but those were thoughts that he was ill-equipped to deal with. Thoughts that didn't really matter anymore because she was gone and being upset with a dead girl didn't make much sense.

It was finally time to just let go.

[like neon lights]

[i]It's humid and sticky, but the sun isn't shining. In the middle of the afternoon, three o'clock to be exact, I finally forced myself out of my bed, but only because I decided that I was hungry. There isn't any food here, I had to walk down to the deli a few blocks away and I wouldn't have minded so much if I'd remembered where I put my shoes. But I didn't remember and I cut the smallest toe on my foot with the biggest piece of glass known to mankind, and I never saw it coming.

I am consumed with thought. Ones that range from good to bad, some that are like hyperactive children who bounce up and down and run to the front of the line. (The kind you just can't ignore, no matter how fucking hard you try.) Some are dead and festering, reminding me that they're still around when I catch their decaying scent in the breeze. And even yet, there are some thoughts that just stand patiently and wait their turn--and a few who jump out from behind random doors and scare me when I realize that they're there.

I am consumed by one thought, one that is gigantic compared to all the rest: did I make a mistake? Should I call him? Noel came and left last night and in the span of a few short hours, he managed to turn me upside down and shake out all of my fears. He left because he said he wanted to make me happy and I think that might be one of the most thoughtful things anyone has ever done for me.

I shouldn't have let him leave.

I'm going to paint him and offer it as an apology for exposing him to all of my frustrating insecurities. I doubt he'll want to see me after last night, anymore.

I don't blame him.



I really wish I wasn't such an asshole sometimes. It would make life that much more easy.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 10, 2004 08:44 PM: Message edited by: you make me shallow ]</font>