Dearest diary (ft. Bukowski acolyte).

These,

the forgotten hours of the morning, 12 through 5.
One scotch begets two becomes three.
Butterscotch-print couch deflating under our weight.
On volunteering:
Everything we do for our own gratification (spoke Dan),
especially volunteer work.
No! (I retorted) ad infinitum,
No no no no no!
(like I'm learning bedrock Spanish.)
Exasperation. Now.

Afterwards, though (I thought):
You solipsist! Everything Me or We or Us! Volunteering is Them!

Lo, I did manage to convey one point.
The point was that we can change (he disagreed).
That we aren’t hapless puppets of our bequeathers, our milieu;
that we are puppets wielding scissors, strings straining above, beckoning to be cut.
(I told him:)
Sometimes I say or do or even dream (dream!) something and wonder where the, well, where the FUCK it came from?
I do not recognise it as me.
But what I do I do I do is I trace back the breadcrumbs,
rummage through my trove of memories,
and I’ll find the needle,
luck upon the exact formative moment that cued me to say or do or dream what I did not recognise as me, and
Bam!
A taut string amid a thicket of others is cut,
a silent snip, emancipated of puppeteer,
(Who be this puppeteer?)
and I won’t say nor do that thing ever again, you see?

Yeah (he said), somehow looking like
Bukowski in the muted glow of the lamp.
I’ve done that before,
I know what you mean.

And so well then:
You were brought up on a diet of Catholicism, Bukowski, and a pervasive crop of marijuana in year 12, you say? Bukowski? Pervasive?

Snip, snip, snip.

Where were we?
Volunteering, I believe.