it isn’t new, it happens a lot. I admire you so much that I don’t have the right to bother you or take up your time. I admire your mind, and I admire the things you do. Well at least most of the things you do, nobody is totally perfect. Let me hold some of my life up to the light so we can both have a look. I’m just like you and everybody else. Each day is God’s gift and how we spend it is our own business. I’m going to say A few things here and I hope I don’t offend , but let me just have my moment okay? I don’t have that many people in my life, just a few. Some of the parting was by their choice and some of that was by my choice. I’ve crossed paths with so many people but not that many stand out to me as an important part of my life. I don’t base the importance on whether or not that person was kind to me or not. What impresses me is how people handle life in spite of the raw deal that many of us get. What I most admire is a beautiful brain. Medium is such a wonderful life, where people can display their brain when they write . They are showing their intelligence and the depth of their sensitivities. They are displaying their beautiful brain with the bold audacity, that if it were their body, they may be labeled as slightly risqué. I so fall in love with the brain. I admire many people and more often than not, it’s a one-way deal. They probably don’t think that much of me but maybe they’re a little flattered to be truly admired for how they think and their sensitivities. My payment is the return attention that I get. I’m sure it means more to me than it did to the person giving the attention. I might record it somehow. I might take a photograph of it on the monitor. I might clap for if it’s on Medium and do everything I can to save it. Some of the friends I have on Medium, pardon me for a moment I was overcome with emotion, some of the friends I have on Medium are irreplaceable. I’ve met a few that are so valuable and precious to me that the thought of losing them forever makes me go crazy. This writing lifestyle that we have is wonderful. Friends I’ve met here are real to me, because they “ARE” real, even though they just come across this stupid machine. It makes me hurt inside that in today’s society, we are afraid to get personal. Even when we find somebody we truly like, we would never share addresses or emails or anything like that. I guess I used to think, it’s dangerous to share those things, even with someone that you think you know well enough. Well I’m here to tell you the other side of the coin. There are two stories about everything, you know, and I think you should hear my side and maybe you can judge me in the comments. I don’t think I’m totally wrong here. Quite frankly, I’m a very emotional boy and I fall in love too easily. It’s one of the things that enables me to write love poetry. Twice this year I have been lucky enough to be in love with not just one, but two special someones. It’s not confusing, it’s wonderful. These dear sweet loving friends are like snowflakes, Each is beautiful and wonderful in their own unique way. This fortune is unheard of in my life or anybody’s life for that matter. Some people never fall in love. You might wonder why I use the term lucky. If you could see me, you might think that I was suffering. The way I have cried waterfalls tears and made people wondering if I was dying or if my dog just ran away from home. What could possibly be making me so emotional. I know if I told them that I was having emotion over an online friend and I was feeling very lonesome, they would not deem that worthy.
I feel sorry for people that don’t allow themselves to fall in love during their lifetime, and feel the love to that depth of their toes,( I’m sure many know what I mean.) If they don’t have these feelings, I wonder if they are truly living. I know I shouldn’t do this, but if I don’t let my emotions be my guide. If I don’t, I don’t feel like I’m being true to myself. I feel like I’m lying to myself.
You wrote to me, and I wrote to you and we told each other about our lives. We shared heart felt “I love yous”. I know, I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you. But I could feel myself melting and flowing.Yes yes, I AM a love poem and in order to feel love,
I must feel every single bit of it. The happiness as well as the sadness. I’m crying when I say this — Especially, anger cum forgiveness. And if I am a love poem as I claim, I dedicate my life to you. You will always be a part of me even if we share nothing more forever. Thank you for sharing a little bit of your life with me. It means more to me than you could ever possibly know.

IT MAKES ME CRAZY was originally published in The Love Pub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some people like me, are a bit like typhoid Mary. I don’t mean to say that I carry any diseases, because I am proud to say that in spite of my strange life, I have avoided all contagions.
Except one time many moons ago, my eyes turned brown in the white part of my eye, , and I couldn’t get enough sleep. My doctor said I had hepatitis. But he said I was not infectious.
I don’t know what caused that reaction in me. I always thought it was because I was eating No-Doze pills like crazy because I was trying to work 40 hours and take care of the household and a baby, and ask my wife about her favorite quiz shows and how her nap want, and what she would like me to cook her for dinner, before I wash out cloth diapers.
Recently I’ve been tested and my current doctor said I never had hepatitis. Go figure. So as you can plainly see, pathogen speaking, I am as pure as the driven snow. I am definitely not a typhoid Jimmy.
So why is it that every time I find a woman that I like, her first reaction is to throw up……………. Stop laughing, that is very hurtful.
My first serious love, right in the beginning romantic stages of making out and all of that rot, she goes and throws up all over the couch. Thank God it wasn’t my couch, it was only my friends couch.. But I liked the girl. She could kiss very deadly until the nausea crept in. I felt liked being around her, so I took care of my friend's couch. That was not cheap. I ended up spending 15 years with my throw up queen.
We ended up getting a divorce. Marriages are like waffles, the first one, you throw away. I was glad that the settlement was amicable.
She got the house and the car, and I got the old couch and a box of pipe fittings. But I also got my freedom and that was rather mind blowing after what I had been through with the puker. After we divorced, I went through my insane period. ( Actually I should say, the period where I was way more insane than usual.) Let me take a little side trip here. Just because you think you’re losing your mind doesn’t mean you’ve got to do something about it. Why not just relax and enjoy it. If your mind wants to go on a holiday let it. Anyway back to business.
So I apologize, I’m a normal male. I was “on the make”. My manly musk was oozing out of my every pore. I had an unmistakable aura of here comes trouble — Mr. God’s gift to all women is on the loose. Give me a break, every guy feels like this sometimes. Even the ones that are faking it, which incidentally, I feel that every guy is just faking it and I am the real McCoy. Okay let’s face it. Guys comb their hair or do whatever they do to their hair and fix the beard or shave and then they throw on so much aftershave lotion and cologne that you want to barf, and they think that’s attractive. I have a secret. They do that because they don’t bathe. I don’t wear any cologne. I don’t have to. I actually bathe. I keep taking these little side trips. Getting back to my story after my divorce I started going with someone new. She was a lovely girl and so funny. She and me went to Randy’s house because Randy was having a party and serving tamale pie. I had previously made a bet with Randy that I could drink more tequila than him. Randy enjoys competition even if it involves drinking. So everybody at the party is watching we two fools having a tequila drinking competition. Well, I sure showed him because I won. My brand-new girlfriend drove us home in her fancy MG convertible, very snazzy. The shoe was on the other foot that night. Since we got back to my apartment, I suggested we sit down together on my couch. I offered her a nice comfortable seat on my alley couch. My couch was in the alley behind my apartment. It was a nice couch and would have been handy if I could’ve hauled 500 pounds of Naugahyde and steel on my back up a narrow flight of stairs and around a sharp bend at the top. So, there’s she and me sitting in the alley on my couch. This might’ve been our second date. I’m sitting on the end and I casually lean over the arm of the couch and began praying to my personal hero on so many occasions — RALPH. When I was done with Painting the alley with a mixture of tamale pie and tequila, and singing the praises of Ralph up and down in echoes throughout the alley, I stopped for a breather. knowing full well that you don’t get this kind of patina all out of your face and breath out of a bottle of aftershave or fancy Hollywood “pretty Boy” cologne, I turned to her and seriously looked into her eyes and asked her if she would like to make out. She burst out laughing so loud that I thought the neighbors would call the cops for sure, because after all, it was 3 o’clock in the morning. That incident was about as funny as the time we found a dead pheasant on an off ramp, that had been killed by a car. I jumped out and grabbed it and he was still warm. We cleaned him up and baked The little guy, and had the most elegant New Year’s Eve dinner in the world.
My last incident is the most hurtful of all, I am a man, and as such I am a delicate wittle flower and my ego is so easily hurt. My dear sweet wife. The woman that claims she loves me with all her heart. The woman that has stood by my side for longer than you have been alive, I make/made her sick on a daily basis. We have been together for a long time and half that time and to this day she gets sick being around me. She doesn’t really get much worse than nausea but the nausea is terribly intense. We went to the doctor, and I asked the doctor if he thought it was me, and that maybe I was somehow making her sick. He said yes in my professional opinion she has an allergy and disgust for you. I thought I saw little smile on his face, so I didn’t take that monstrously hurtful thing that he said to heart. She’s a strong woman and she’s determined to be with me no matter what, even if I make her nauseous. What a girl. That is true love.

I MAKE WOMEN BARF was originally published in The Love Pub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Every time I hear this song I feel sick inside. I don’t mind mentioning that I was so overcome with grief over the love I still feel for you. You were everything to me. You are also so long ago. You are evil. You are beautiful, ………to me .
Why I can’t get you out of my head?
You were my wife, my love, my everything. You are the symbol of all my broken heart emotions. You define me, you explained me, everything I am and everything I have become, every fear I have, came to me as a result of my life with you.

Even though I can’t stop thinking of myself as your man, you never allowed me to be a man or your man. You never allowed anything. I despised you for the way you made me feel. The good because it was a lie and the bad because it was the truth.
Some days, you took my love and used it as your plaything. One day I was sure of your love and the next day I was trash.

You gave me just enough breadcrumbs to thrill me to my soul, and just when I thought my life was going to be happy again, the slot machine handle grew cold in my hand. No matter how many times I pulled that handle, the payoff was never there until you are ready to dole it out the next time.
Oh my God, when I was on the high side of your love, it was like I was on drugs, I was so high. you don’t just feel love in your head. I felt love for you with my entire body clear down to my toes. God gives us feel good chemicals and my oxytocin was flooding me when we were happy.
And then the heartache would come. You were my wife, but totally indifferent to my needs, my wants, my desires, my dreams. You became an island unto yourself totally aloof from our marriage. Of course when I could not take our life together anymore, I had to leave because this was not any kind of a life. It felt toxic and I was constantly miserable. But then the insane side of my mind started taking over. The part that knows that you are like a drug that I can’t do without. The longer I am without you the more insane I become to get that next fix of you.
I’m gone for weeks maybe months but when you need something you know that all you have to do is find me and do your wicked spellcasting. You know, I’m going to come running home with the promise that you might change your ways and show me affection. With you loving me and treating me like a wife, I am in paradise. You can’t believe the beautiful world that a continuous flow of oxytocin produces.
And then it starts again. We can’t possibly make love because you came home 5 minutes late from work and that proves that you’re having an affair.
I know you have been working 36 hours straight and now eyes can finally rest, you want to make love right now. You are resentful, I’m just too exhausted and you hold it against me .
Okay so making love wasn’t what you wanted to do. Don’t you love me? You tell me you love me and you are totally devoted to me, and you treat me like this. I have to leave you because this is not a marriage, this is a sham. I want to find a real woman a real wife, a real marriage. A woman that doesn’t use sex as a weapon or a bargaining tool in marriage. And even at that you’re a failure because you never follow through on the bargain.
I concentrate on sex as the failure of our marriage but it was so much more than that. There was no intimacy between you and me except the dreams that were in my mind while we were sleeping together.
Sex was only granted in certain situations and only rarely so. Your system of reward and starvation over and over and over caused me to almost lose my mind. The chemical rush of losing you for weeks at a time and then having you return to me was the most unbelievable high you could ever imagine. But as wonderful as that oxytocin was, the opposite side of the coin always showed up. Watching my starving for your love and then after a long drought, rewarding me. This back-and-forth repetition was just like a drug, I had to drop you. I had to drop everybody I knew, every friend that you and I had together. Every single tie was severed with my life of you. It’s the only way I could break free. There was no repairing our relationship. I think I knew it all along but, still had so much love for you I never wanted to say it was over.

THIS SONG MAKES ME SICK each time I hear it, I think you. was originally published in The Love Pub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’M FINE, I’M FINE was originally published in The Love Pub on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.