Really long. Just this third person narrative I did a while back.
The Temptation of Thaddeus Allen Jude
or “For Annette”
I
It was almost winter when my soul met yours
And the leaves clung barely to their lifeless limbs
Occasionally, a shaking stray would detach
And soar gently towards the brown grass
Back and forth, back and forth, and slowly farther down
In the seeming hurricane of a gentle evening breeze
I knew your name, I knew of your name so well
It was rehearsed over and over again
In the actors of oh so many juvenile dramas
And I knew that you were not to be touched
Admired, noticed, recognized
Loving you was out of the question
And I could suppress, with considerable difficulty
The notice of your sweet and fragrant perfume
Your childish laugh, and your radiant smile
Your silky voice, and piercing bright eyes
And it bore striking resemblance
To fighting the urge to be sick
And so we went rolling down asphalt mountains
Thundering along the rugged and unmoving earth
And I like to believe, that you were thinking
Similar things to the many thoughts, rattling my brain
And we laughed at each other's jokes
As the aching midnight scenery flew past our windows
You were a child, and I was a child
And we couldn't hide our immaturity
Our selfishness, our shame
But you have grown up, I have grown older
I am but an old and bitter man now
I cannot help but feel as though I owe it to you
But not long ago, not many years ago
Two-thousand cigarettes ago
Fourteen hundred cans of condensed soup ago
One thousand pints of beer ago
Three dead-end jobs ago
You loved me nearly as much as I love you now
I had no other desire in the world at all
Than to love and be loved by you
And there was no force on heaven or earth
That could make my feelings false
You were far more worthy of my love
Than I of yours, I admit
And I know I wasn't always sober!
But you had a crutch of your own
And I hid mine, and you hid yours
But neither of us were very ashamed
And through false fabrications of the mind
I cannot remember certain details
Was it you that made a statement to I?
I recall being perched with a friend
Excited about the prospects of lust
About the prospect of foolish youth
Or was it I that came to you and confessed?
It may have been both
Was it a confession from you
Followed by a plea from me?
Shot down like tiny aeroplanes
To go “bang” in the noonday sun?
I can recall the aluminum paneling of my garage
And my feeling of fear, mingled with excitement
I waited not too long for your reply
It was devastating, I believe
It was thoughtless and uncaring, I believe
A brushing of dust off of your shoulder
A simple and dismissive reply
That still burns my eyes when I see the letter folded
But that cannot be it!
I could not have been consoled by a friend
Whom was having his trust abused
By none other than yours truly
I was sneaking like a soldier behind his shadow
Deviously planning, convincing myself not to care
But he was as omniscient as ever
He was aware and informed
He must have been aware
As he watched us waltz together down beneath
The neon sunlight of some abandoned
Obsolete city structure after midnight
And there was the dream! And what a dream it was!
Where my hand rested upon yours
And we gazed into the glorious apocalypse
And we watched the sun setting and the clouds gathering
And the birds flew and the children sang
And all was beautiful
What an indescribable feeling!
And I still have yet to tell you that it was you
You continue to think that it was some fantasy
As you do of the dream, where I sat beside you crying
As you took pill after pill, and laid down to rest
Rest forever
But I changed your mind
I made myself more and more hideous
Until you could no longer bear my thought
You could no longer see yourself
Forever basking in my shadow
Or I, in yours
And here I lie, curled like a helpless fetus
At the bottom of countless bottles
Where the glass is cool on my face
And the glass is thick and it protects me
You can't hurt me in here Annette
The glass distorts your gorgeous features
Until the day I retreat
And I pray that you come to me
And speak loud so I might hear you
And stretch your hand so I might reach you
And open your heart so I might love you
And we will be together and happy again
And here the inebriate stands on the roadside, rain-soaked
In the passing and drifting darkness
With growing heat, clothes losing their wet adhesive
With water still gathering below my eyes and falling
Back and forth, back and forth, and slowly farther down
In the seeming hurricane of a gentle evening breeze
II
I can still recall our obscure humor
God, we were so insecure.
We couldn't ever just come out and say it.
We were so young and so immature.
But I've grown so much since then, I have
And I like to think that you're growing, too
And we all need comfort from growing pains.
We all need something to get us through
It was some late April night
When you looked so upset and abused
And your flowers started fading
Your pale eyes grew sad and confused
You opened your mouth
And poured out a million things
And even in cruel rejection, I couldn't
Help but hear the way the angel sings
And everyone had warned me
Warned me that you'd leave me in the end
I lost my mind, I lost my love
I lost my only friend
And in darkness dreams, deserted
Tears painted scenes upon my sheets
Planting silent seeds of sorrow
And I laid beneath the world's walking feet
Trampled and left for dead, bleeding
A beaten, broken man
I turned to the one friend I had yet to lose
And she was glad to lend a hand
And it took losing you to realize
It took all that time to see
That when her bottle touched my lips
I didn't take from her, she took from me
And I still held you in my dreams
But from all dreams, we must wake
And there was nothing left for you to give anymore
And I had not the strength to take
I shouldn't have let you slip away
I should have gripped my hand
A little tighter below the glass of time
To grasp each last grain of sand
III
Where have you left your mark as of today?
What scene lies in the background of your uncaring phrases?
Like moonbeams in your gardens, garnish for your naturally festering feast of souls.
The minds of a million men.
The conscience of countless victims.
The hearts of helpless angels.
Plant me somewhere in your infertile soil, less nurturing then the desert sands.
Bury me beneath the snowfall in your lifeless evergreen garden,
where the cold can't sting me,
the dead can't see me,
and your ears cannot hear me
Just run, break for the horizon and never stop.
Run through the pain in your feet, in your loins, in your mind.
And remind yourself that the earth is round, and your past
is always right behind you and in front of you, eventually.
Don't you know that I can't drink coffee anymore?
It's aroma and flavor speaks volumes, raving of your memory.
Don't you know that my garage walls are painted with your images?
Do you notice when I'm not around?
Do you think of better times when you see my face, hear my voice?
Does anything remind you of me?
The whole world reminds me of you, Annette.
Your eyes pave every street, your follicles dangle from foliage near and far.
Your feet have left imprints on all of the beaches, and the crashing of a thousand waves cannot erase them.
Your face gloats from bus stop billboards.
Your skin is draped over everything, and every hand I meet is yours.
Your tears fall from rainclouds in bad weather,
and the powerful rumbling of distant disturbances shake the clouds.
The clouds so gray and angry, compare not to the beautiful anger that so rarely graces your face.
And the rain isn't as salty and rich to the taste.
Nature is only a pale imitation of your beauty.
Yesterday matters, Annette.
Yesterday is all I have of you, and I won't let yesterday slip away.
IV
There's no getting over the love you almost gave me, Annette.
It sulks in my hallway, breathing heavily through the cracks in my door.
It leaves stinging wounds below my ear, above my shoulder, it graces my existence vacantly and without rest.
Your memory is still tangled up in my thoughts, weaving in and out, showing its face at the sight or sound of some reminder. Or sometimes, for no reason at all, other than my selfish and indelible obsession with the memories you helped me create. The things that have happened, have always happened, always will happen on this nonlinear and puzzling map of personal time.
O, what tidiness! What grandeur! What beautiful, precious, endearing irony! Had I viewed this situation from any other position, my cruel and careless howling cries of mirth would escape my chest and carry themselves on laughters wings up into the heavens, circling the Spanish moon. Creating avalanches, earthquakes, eruptions, and giant walls of water that would crash into the ground below like a million unmanned freight trains.
It's a thing of insanity, a thing of psychopathic proportions that you and your perfect soul would never be able to grasp.
I had a dream that you held me in your arms, as I was bawling and sobbing, naked as a lark. You were drying the tears from my face, after you had created them. You were my nurturer and my savior. It was beautiful.
I once had a dream of you before I knew you. You were sitting with your arms behind you, supporting you as you stared upward at the gathering clouds. You were in that endless field of train tracks that I revisit over and over, in the hopes to feel again.
To feel how I felt when I dreamed that dream.
That dream of that epic storm, that sense of freedom, that darkened swamp, that endless field of train tracks below a solitary and unending freeway pass where we held hands and spoke in poetic verse, watched the birds flying, the children celebrating, the clouds congregating and darkening, the sun sinking below the horizon that lay tucked beneath the blanket of a million shades of gray.
It must have been significant. It was a warning about the feelings of love you created before the destructive storm that followed. I want to believe there was more. I want to believe that there was some other message there, but that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness. That would be an act of futility.
This is the only way I know how to tell you these things.
You are my muse, still.
And every song that served as the background and atmosphere to all of the times I've spoken to you still brings me heartbreaking memories, Annette.
You will never know what a precious thing you took from me, and what a precious thing you are. But your love and feelings still exist in the past. Those things don't disappear or pass, they always have existed, always will exist.
And as the lonesome midnight train pushes forward in the darkness, shaking the ground and startling the birds, and as the ground lay dry and thirsty in the desert.
As the pianos and violins sing out with no ears to digest their notes, and as the Sunday morning families bow their heads down in prayer.
As the tiny grain of sand on the beach shouts to dark and endless sky: "I'm significant", the London fog rolls tenderly across the moonlit cobblestones, with the gentle pitter-patter of light rain slowly dying.
They all remind me of you, my love.
or “For Annette”
I
It was almost winter when my soul met yours
And the leaves clung barely to their lifeless limbs
Occasionally, a shaking stray would detach
And soar gently towards the brown grass
Back and forth, back and forth, and slowly farther down
In the seeming hurricane of a gentle evening breeze
I knew your name, I knew of your name so well
It was rehearsed over and over again
In the actors of oh so many juvenile dramas
And I knew that you were not to be touched
Admired, noticed, recognized
Loving you was out of the question
And I could suppress, with considerable difficulty
The notice of your sweet and fragrant perfume
Your childish laugh, and your radiant smile
Your silky voice, and piercing bright eyes
And it bore striking resemblance
To fighting the urge to be sick
And so we went rolling down asphalt mountains
Thundering along the rugged and unmoving earth
And I like to believe, that you were thinking
Similar things to the many thoughts, rattling my brain
And we laughed at each other's jokes
As the aching midnight scenery flew past our windows
You were a child, and I was a child
And we couldn't hide our immaturity
Our selfishness, our shame
But you have grown up, I have grown older
I am but an old and bitter man now
I cannot help but feel as though I owe it to you
But not long ago, not many years ago
Two-thousand cigarettes ago
Fourteen hundred cans of condensed soup ago
One thousand pints of beer ago
Three dead-end jobs ago
You loved me nearly as much as I love you now
I had no other desire in the world at all
Than to love and be loved by you
And there was no force on heaven or earth
That could make my feelings false
You were far more worthy of my love
Than I of yours, I admit
And I know I wasn't always sober!
But you had a crutch of your own
And I hid mine, and you hid yours
But neither of us were very ashamed
And through false fabrications of the mind
I cannot remember certain details
Was it you that made a statement to I?
I recall being perched with a friend
Excited about the prospects of lust
About the prospect of foolish youth
Or was it I that came to you and confessed?
It may have been both
Was it a confession from you
Followed by a plea from me?
Shot down like tiny aeroplanes
To go “bang” in the noonday sun?
I can recall the aluminum paneling of my garage
And my feeling of fear, mingled with excitement
I waited not too long for your reply
It was devastating, I believe
It was thoughtless and uncaring, I believe
A brushing of dust off of your shoulder
A simple and dismissive reply
That still burns my eyes when I see the letter folded
But that cannot be it!
I could not have been consoled by a friend
Whom was having his trust abused
By none other than yours truly
I was sneaking like a soldier behind his shadow
Deviously planning, convincing myself not to care
But he was as omniscient as ever
He was aware and informed
He must have been aware
As he watched us waltz together down beneath
The neon sunlight of some abandoned
Obsolete city structure after midnight
And there was the dream! And what a dream it was!
Where my hand rested upon yours
And we gazed into the glorious apocalypse
And we watched the sun setting and the clouds gathering
And the birds flew and the children sang
And all was beautiful
What an indescribable feeling!
And I still have yet to tell you that it was you
You continue to think that it was some fantasy
As you do of the dream, where I sat beside you crying
As you took pill after pill, and laid down to rest
Rest forever
But I changed your mind
I made myself more and more hideous
Until you could no longer bear my thought
You could no longer see yourself
Forever basking in my shadow
Or I, in yours
And here I lie, curled like a helpless fetus
At the bottom of countless bottles
Where the glass is cool on my face
And the glass is thick and it protects me
You can't hurt me in here Annette
The glass distorts your gorgeous features
Until the day I retreat
And I pray that you come to me
And speak loud so I might hear you
And stretch your hand so I might reach you
And open your heart so I might love you
And we will be together and happy again
And here the inebriate stands on the roadside, rain-soaked
In the passing and drifting darkness
With growing heat, clothes losing their wet adhesive
With water still gathering below my eyes and falling
Back and forth, back and forth, and slowly farther down
In the seeming hurricane of a gentle evening breeze
II
I can still recall our obscure humor
God, we were so insecure.
We couldn't ever just come out and say it.
We were so young and so immature.
But I've grown so much since then, I have
And I like to think that you're growing, too
And we all need comfort from growing pains.
We all need something to get us through
It was some late April night
When you looked so upset and abused
And your flowers started fading
Your pale eyes grew sad and confused
You opened your mouth
And poured out a million things
And even in cruel rejection, I couldn't
Help but hear the way the angel sings
And everyone had warned me
Warned me that you'd leave me in the end
I lost my mind, I lost my love
I lost my only friend
And in darkness dreams, deserted
Tears painted scenes upon my sheets
Planting silent seeds of sorrow
And I laid beneath the world's walking feet
Trampled and left for dead, bleeding
A beaten, broken man
I turned to the one friend I had yet to lose
And she was glad to lend a hand
And it took losing you to realize
It took all that time to see
That when her bottle touched my lips
I didn't take from her, she took from me
And I still held you in my dreams
But from all dreams, we must wake
And there was nothing left for you to give anymore
And I had not the strength to take
I shouldn't have let you slip away
I should have gripped my hand
A little tighter below the glass of time
To grasp each last grain of sand
III
Where have you left your mark as of today?
What scene lies in the background of your uncaring phrases?
Like moonbeams in your gardens, garnish for your naturally festering feast of souls.
The minds of a million men.
The conscience of countless victims.
The hearts of helpless angels.
Plant me somewhere in your infertile soil, less nurturing then the desert sands.
Bury me beneath the snowfall in your lifeless evergreen garden,
where the cold can't sting me,
the dead can't see me,
and your ears cannot hear me
Just run, break for the horizon and never stop.
Run through the pain in your feet, in your loins, in your mind.
And remind yourself that the earth is round, and your past
is always right behind you and in front of you, eventually.
Don't you know that I can't drink coffee anymore?
It's aroma and flavor speaks volumes, raving of your memory.
Don't you know that my garage walls are painted with your images?
Do you notice when I'm not around?
Do you think of better times when you see my face, hear my voice?
Does anything remind you of me?
The whole world reminds me of you, Annette.
Your eyes pave every street, your follicles dangle from foliage near and far.
Your feet have left imprints on all of the beaches, and the crashing of a thousand waves cannot erase them.
Your face gloats from bus stop billboards.
Your skin is draped over everything, and every hand I meet is yours.
Your tears fall from rainclouds in bad weather,
and the powerful rumbling of distant disturbances shake the clouds.
The clouds so gray and angry, compare not to the beautiful anger that so rarely graces your face.
And the rain isn't as salty and rich to the taste.
Nature is only a pale imitation of your beauty.
Yesterday matters, Annette.
Yesterday is all I have of you, and I won't let yesterday slip away.
IV
There's no getting over the love you almost gave me, Annette.
It sulks in my hallway, breathing heavily through the cracks in my door.
It leaves stinging wounds below my ear, above my shoulder, it graces my existence vacantly and without rest.
Your memory is still tangled up in my thoughts, weaving in and out, showing its face at the sight or sound of some reminder. Or sometimes, for no reason at all, other than my selfish and indelible obsession with the memories you helped me create. The things that have happened, have always happened, always will happen on this nonlinear and puzzling map of personal time.
O, what tidiness! What grandeur! What beautiful, precious, endearing irony! Had I viewed this situation from any other position, my cruel and careless howling cries of mirth would escape my chest and carry themselves on laughters wings up into the heavens, circling the Spanish moon. Creating avalanches, earthquakes, eruptions, and giant walls of water that would crash into the ground below like a million unmanned freight trains.
It's a thing of insanity, a thing of psychopathic proportions that you and your perfect soul would never be able to grasp.
I had a dream that you held me in your arms, as I was bawling and sobbing, naked as a lark. You were drying the tears from my face, after you had created them. You were my nurturer and my savior. It was beautiful.
I once had a dream of you before I knew you. You were sitting with your arms behind you, supporting you as you stared upward at the gathering clouds. You were in that endless field of train tracks that I revisit over and over, in the hopes to feel again.
To feel how I felt when I dreamed that dream.
That dream of that epic storm, that sense of freedom, that darkened swamp, that endless field of train tracks below a solitary and unending freeway pass where we held hands and spoke in poetic verse, watched the birds flying, the children celebrating, the clouds congregating and darkening, the sun sinking below the horizon that lay tucked beneath the blanket of a million shades of gray.
It must have been significant. It was a warning about the feelings of love you created before the destructive storm that followed. I want to believe there was more. I want to believe that there was some other message there, but that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness. That would be an act of futility.
This is the only way I know how to tell you these things.
You are my muse, still.
And every song that served as the background and atmosphere to all of the times I've spoken to you still brings me heartbreaking memories, Annette.
You will never know what a precious thing you took from me, and what a precious thing you are. But your love and feelings still exist in the past. Those things don't disappear or pass, they always have existed, always will exist.
And as the lonesome midnight train pushes forward in the darkness, shaking the ground and startling the birds, and as the ground lay dry and thirsty in the desert.
As the pianos and violins sing out with no ears to digest their notes, and as the Sunday morning families bow their heads down in prayer.
As the tiny grain of sand on the beach shouts to dark and endless sky: "I'm significant", the London fog rolls tenderly across the moonlit cobblestones, with the gentle pitter-patter of light rain slowly dying.
They all remind me of you, my love.