We spend the majority of our struggles toward maturity trying to outgrow the fine mess our mothers made of us. That's what Sigmund said, anyway.

We dance around the Freudian concerns of breastfeeding, Oedipal affection and then separation anxiety, and just as we seem to be bottoming out of this psychiatric quagmire, we're suddenly struggling to understand this whole sex thing. And don't even get me started on Dad.

We are sexual beings. Strongly sexual. From love and affection to its end-result--us. We have to imagine our parents engaged in sex, and then we don't give it a second thought because we pledge to ourselves to never think about that a second time.

So what do we get served? Hot dogs.

Now we're supposed to think how condiments work better than condoms on these phallic objects of tubular meat, hugged so affectionately by vulvar bread called, of all things, a bun. And we're supposed to eat them! Put them into our mouths. And we once again struggle to stomp that particular, more refined, parental imagery into oblivion.

Oh, my God, but we're wicked! Mouths are made for eating and for sex. It obvious from the time breastfeed to survive to the time we breast-something for sex drive.

And we are wicked enough to equate the two--sex and eating--metaphorically, visually, and gustatorally--a new word construction I shall call a venereonym (gustatory + oral = gusta-oral = gustatorally--not redundant, not understating it, nor overstating it, but stating it--Yes, Goldilocks--"just right."

And how about those who cut the hot dogs into a little stack of coins? Are they sick or what?

Look, I know it's possibly a stretch to have a hangup with the whole penile existentialism because we turn the wrong corner at the county fair, cross the wrong kiosk at the mall, or just have a hankering for a penis-shaped food for our oral fixation. And is the foot-long version real or a myth?

But think about how much better sex is with marijuana...or how much better a hot dog hits the spot after smoking it. Munchies = Horny.

Now we're on to something. Pleasure is commutative when it comes to sex and hot dogs. So savor the dog-in-bun, if you can. Before you realize just how nasty the seemingly innocent tube-steak really is.

An hour is 60 minutes, 3,600 seconds, or 3,600,000 milliseconds. But it's just enough time to save or ruin the remaining 26,280,000 minutes, 1,576,800,000 seconds, or 1,576,800,000,000 milliseconds you have left. That's about 1,839,600,000 heartbeats, give or take--adjusted by the saving or the ruining.

Pearls are the result of irritation. Ask any oyster. Or the host of any guest who's outlasted his welcome.

And I'm irritated.

The irony is that I use this concentric-layered aragonite and calcite to sequester my irritation. It just happens to be on the end of a pistol. It's to settle my discontent that began small as a grain. That milky white irony is now firmly within my grasp: solid, purposeful, 45-calibred, and well-aimed. It is an iron-clad clasp that is clammy and sweaty. I won't wait a day longer, lest it become rusty.

Colt Manufacturing Company and Smith & Wesson solve problems. They remedy discontent. I bought stock in them before I bought this useful tool lock, stock, and barrel. It's the only thing that memorializes me in this alleged crime, committed--allegedly--by the alleged shooter who is me. Allegedly.

People with imagination, however, will ask, "Who killed whom?"

And what will finally solve my problem is that I must turn this pearly executioner on myself as well as you. Because the whole drama--the discontent, the irritation, the pain, the cruelty that ruins what's left of my life--is a package deal of you and me. There's no villain and there's no victim. You and I are way past that. How would one draw the line between us? This is our final dance macabre together. Does it matter whether it's here or at the end of a rope? What does matter in any dance is who leads.

May I?

I have clammed up tight, but the irritation has continued within--until I find I must open, explosively, to discharge that irritation. It's just part of the pearl-making ecosystem, don't you think?

You want to live? So do I! But there's no living with you. We're gonna go together. I've tried to understand your motivations and your reasons. I found them irritating, so I suppose I'm just a terrible host; and you've outstayed your welcome.

So, before all is done, we're both gonna be dead. Two birds with one stone, eh?

Me and my terminal disease. I hope you find it funny, but I've left explicit instructions that my tombstone read,

YOU SHOULD SEE THE OTHER GUY

Now that our time is over, at least for a full month (I purposely chose one with 31 days), I ask that you stay on the line a bit longer to take a brief survey of your time with me.

Press 1 for Yes and 2 for NO.

1. Thank you. Your answers and information will be used for training purposes.

For your answers:

Press 1 for: Definitely, of course

Press 2 for: Somewhat, but I'm conflicted

Press 3 for: It's hard to tell, ask me when you come back

Press 4 for: Get the fuck outa here, are you kidding?

Press 5 for: ...and the horse you road in on

Press 6 for: I'm gonna make an amber alert on you or whatever the hell color you call yourself

Press 7 for: Can I say I'm you from now on or until you get back? Can I have your bitchin' ride?

Press 8 for: You never cared about me, you inconsiderate sonofabitch

Press 9 for: When you come back I'm gonna stab you

Press 9-1-1 for: When you come back.

THE QUESTIONS:

Do you feel you have gotten to know me well enough to understand why I left?

Do you know that it's people like you who were the main determinants of my desperate plan?

Do you know your total lack of faith in me drove me to my sensory deprivation escape?

Do you care to know me or do you simply not care? (Careful, that's a trick question.)

Don't you think we're way past that? (Careful, that's a rhetorical question.)

Do you think that I think that you think I think less now than before you thought of me? (Careful, that's an unanswerable question.)

I was going to respond to a post about how rude people are to others who write and seem to strike a nerve. But then I realized it was time for a full policy statement.

Maybe my skin's thickened with age or maybe that "Sticks and stones" thing has stuck with me ever since I needed a mantra to repel attacks for when my skin was much thinner.

But here it is:

Anyone--I mean anyone--can attack me, berate me, call me all sorts of things--and I don't mind. theProse is an outlet of creativity. I put it out there, and...well...there it is. Like it or leave it, praise it or condemn it, share it or hope I drop dead. Call me a Democrat or call me a Republican, call me God-fearing or amoral. Call me a genius or an imbecile. (I'll be fine called something in between.)

Once you give up on the dream of getting published, you write for yourself. So, as a 5-times-failed novelist, it's mine to share and you can enjoy it or shove it back up my ass (sideways, because that's supposed to hurt more).

In other words (words--that's funny), there is nothing you can say that will deflate, defeat, or "ingrate" me. The world's drama is only on a stage. It can be tragic, but all plays end. And some give such memorable performances.

If I write something you find offensive, maybe it's just ironic. If I write something you find hurtful, maybe it's just self-reflective. There's good writing and there's bad writing. But writing at all leaves a legacy. I certainly would rather my legacy be troll bait than something like Mein Kampf--my four-and-a-half-year struggle against lies, stupidity and cowardice. ("Mein Kampf II: this time it's personal.")

It may be lies, stupidity, and cowardice one four-and-a-half-year cycle, but arrogance, self-serving, and vanity the next. Maybe beauty is right around the corner. Yes, words can be dangerous when people are foolish, and some people have tighter filters than others--while some allow all the water to drain out the colander.

But anything that comes from me is fair game. Be nice...or not. Follow me until you feel you must unfollow me. On my deathbed, the one sentiment I WON'T have is, "My God, why wasn't I even more snarky when I could have been to...um...to...I don't know...those people."

I'm too fully self-actuated to fall for the me-vs-them thing. How much pain has me-vs-them caused? How many wars? How much death? Haven't we learned by now?

Moral of the story: I'm having a great time here.

No matter how it's received, celebrated, condemned, or ignored. If I'm selfish because I write for me, then at least it's a friendly audience who are courteous enough to silence their smartphones. The audience can look for drama elsewhere. If you dis me, then just saunter off along your way. Like Jed Clampett said, "Y'all come back and visit, now." But remember that on the stage of life actors can be replaced. And prima donnas are usually self-appointed.

But hey! that's just me.

I breathe deep her unique scent

A fragrance sent, parts of she

Taking time to note them well

Before the knell tolls for me

Too busy to notice all

The things that fall in my way

That I step over blindly

That try so kindly to say:

"Stop, stare, breathe, hear, recognize!"

All the clued cries fast passed on

I should have savored them all

So to recall dear life through

Now I'm inert in wonders

To the thunders I heard not

Life's each microtomed moment

Each component my blind spot

My panic is desperate

I've no respite, such gems missed

Never get them back again

Forever, then, erst dismissed

Worthwhile ways to live life all

Requires stalling each time

Loving life with dissecting

For collecting the sublime

Now I'm cramming for finals

Photos equal my Bible

Can't appraise my life when done

My moments unplaceable

I encompassed all three germ lines

Revolution I engendered, but your gender was irrelevant

Evolution I contended, but 'tender was impertinent

Mutations attempted improvement, but not this time

I was your illegitimate alien

Ignoring your legitimate borders

I ate but didn't sleep

Grew but didn't stop

Invaded but didn't retreat

Fought but didn't surrender

Conquered without remorse

Laughed as you cried

Never to return to well-ordered cellular restraints

To be or not to be, going from not-being to being

Manifest destiny drove me to be and not not-be

From head to toe; from left to right; from fore to aft

From there to here and then to when

From shore to fetid shore; from sea to purulent sea

Malignant tentacles of love were my outstretched, tightly embracing arms

It wasn't you kept or trapped--I was kept and trapped

We all must act smartly for ourselves

It was only smart what’s mine was mine and

What’s yours was mine

It was my turn

Taking turns was fair

My intrusion of convexity

Was your concavity

My gain

Was your loss

Your pain when I remain

Wasn't enough room in here for both of us

Me-to-win meant

You lose

I was pluripotent

Totipotent

Omnipotent

I was plural

I was total

I was ominous

Only one could survive

I would prevail

I would be you

I would take names--yours!

It was in the stars

In your genome

In the nucleic acids--one rung on the double helical ladder at a time

You poisoned me with your chemicals--I turned the other cheek

You burned me with your rays--I shined more brightly

You starved me of blood--I sent necrotic toxins to all of your parts

I was a jealous lover and you made me do this

You had it coming

Until:

The rays and the chemicals and the starvation beat me into the ground

Overstood by you, Survivor--you are still here but

So am I, somewhere

I'll be back

Sincerely, intra remissio, I remain, now and forever,

Your Loving Cancer

I am the pox of vox,

the gutteral utteral,

the jokalization of vocalization,

the word absurd,

a phraser laser,

the chyme of rhyme,

the hearse of verse,

meter defeater,

the piety of notoriety,

wrongs at the feet of diphthongs,

the ass of assonance,

the illiterate alliteration,

sentence repentance,

poem maelstrom and

poetic injustice,

the gutter of utter,

manic iambic and

depression expression,

the vile of style,

sonorous malodorous,

the frack of frickin' fricatives,

and the final glottal stop.

And I use cookies you should reject forthwith.

Those red, piercing eyes, following me. See them? They're hungry. They burn!

You can see them. Why don't you admit it? They don't like company. They're closer...closer... My God! They're here. Right now!

They stare, just waiting.

They're closer. Nearly within reach!

They gaze so hard. Just look, please, please! They don't like company.

Who after me? Remember me, when you see them in the rearview mirror. Think of me when you see them in the bushes.

You should have just admitted you saw them, too. They're looking over my head now--right now--right at you. I'm getting colder--oh, it hurts.