The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

wheat generation

If I am to heed Edie and Jack's advice of bringing Lucien around the house at some point, I need to actually become familiar with him so that such a goal is attainable without it being awkward or suspicious of murder in my basement that reeks of unshaven writers and wings of dreams clipped without consent yet a basement that is home to me, which may unnerve people to whom it is not, because quite frankly it looks like a dump, and I've just grown accustomed to its flaws, though for others it will require a prolonged period of time to mask the dinginess with an odd appreciation for the space.

Even then, it won't be the same, at least in intensity, because this is first and foremost my own dwelling, not the dwelling of someone else, especially if they aren't living in it for as long as I am and maybe longer if they're living in it with me, but wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere with someone? Wouldn't it be nice to escape this basement, no matter how much it has grown on me like the fungus cackling in the corners of the ceiling?

Lucien has grown on me, too, so he should be adequate for my goals, but I'm not even acquainted enough with him to simply bring him around the house, let alone ask him to move in with me after a few days of knowing him and only two conversations sprinkled in there, the rest being furnished in speculation and eyes entranced ostensibly by the wall but are actually entranced by the thought of Lucien Carr, the thought that requires a resting point for my vision to repose.

But speculation is a bore when the real model is out in the world for one to grasp and for one to adore, and that real model is wading among the books of the Paterson public library with a murderous cigarette strapped between his fingers and a devilish expression taped to his composure, in his swagger, in his clothing, in his speech, honeyed on some occasions and brittle on others just to dive into the low tones not yet explored by any other man, the low tones capable of slaying those vulnerable to his charm, or in other words, me.

And, like any normal human being, I am craving another taste of Lucien Carr, though he is not as pure as my parents would like, but I don't talk to my parents anymore, so they don't matter. I'm not ever bringing Lucien to meet them, if I can bring him to meet anyone anywhere, and that's just the goal I hope to fulfill.

I've managed to sneak out of the house, past Edie's docile figure reading the newspaper on the couch and past Jack's slumbering body hidden beneath a mountain of blankets that must be as tall as he is because he won't settle for anything less or anything more, even if there's nothing more than his grand mountain he's erected. Maybe the two adults did, in fact, catch me shuffling against the walls to blend into the shadows of the abundant furniture, but they're those kinds of people who want the best for me and mostly my social life, the kind of people who won't object to my departure.

After remaining to be in a basement for almost my entire experience since the dreary halls of Columbia University teeming with people cramming for a test and people accepting that they will fail (overall a high-stakes, traumatizing environment that leaves its students ruptured), Edie and Jack both recognize fully that my social life is something that needs to be excavated by citizens in the outside world. When they try to explain what that outside world is, I don't really understand, because the closest I come to the exterior of the earth is the frequent comments my readers draft to let me know that I can improve their minds with practice and interesting facts and controversial opinions to those who tie themselves to conservative beliefs, but today I'm actually imbibing the outside world for myself, for my own senses, for my own repellant of artificiality sinking into the digital pages of poems about what life and dying and being reborn really are.

Today, I visit the library for the third time in the past few days, not for the books or for a quiet place to study, but for the company of the extraordinary librarian named Lucien Carr, whose resilience is the singular motive of my transport and the singular motive to justify the fact that I just barely finished my article on rhyme and meter after being charged with it a while ago, or at least a while ago for a very productive writer who is now deteriorating because of the man that I am indulging myself in this very day, with my toes tapping the pavement in the rhythm to my convulsing heartbeat on their journey to the library where I will greet the person who has been glued to my mind since we met.