The Metaphysicist (Kill Your Darlings) | Featured

welcome to the cesspool

Lucien is as nervous as I've seen him, shivering not at the November chill wafting around the city street but at the gravity of what he's done, but it's not a regret dampening his shoes like rainwater infecting cotton socks, rather a fear that his apartment is inadequate, that he is inadequate, that I will hate living with him and immediately renege on my promise to reside in a place that seems cozy enough from what average praises I've heard of it from Lucien, and it's somewhat disheartening to see that Lucien Carr, a man who never backs down and never steps away from his previous words, is doing both of those things.

I don't say anything to him, though, because I can infer from his bold character that his masculinity is too fragile for the comforting vows of a friend who is inching closer to his heart with each day, and he would probably fire back expeditiously with a philosophical spiel about how we are all going to die one day and how his anxiety means nothing in something as near as our immediate future, and I'm not prepared to deal with that, especially since he expects me to sort through whatever the hell it is that he's rambling about as if it's relevant to what we're discussing at the current moment, because as far as I can tell, Lucien isn't comprised solely by philosophy — he has organs, he has blood, and he has a brain that can fabricate lies to hide it all, but philosophy is only a quadrant of that brain, which means that he has other portions of himself that need to be properly addressed, whether that's by a professional psychologist or his new roommate.

I'm going to enjoy dwelling in the home of this living embodiment of poetry itself -- though I'm not quite sure what it is that he writes, if he's even selected poetry at all -- and I realize that it will be a struggle on both parts, but what writer isn't a mess? There will either be a chaotic double trouble that I will require myself to clean up after each shitstorm, or there will be complete and utter oblivion for some inexplicable reason that haunts us both but is never elucidated, a form of subtle teamwork that we never would've predicted though cherish nonetheless, and it might be terrifying, but everything wonderful in life is always a bit of that.

Why would you be a flower when you can be a storm? Why would you be alluring when you can bring men to their knees? Why would you allow others to bestow qualities upon you when you can snare them yourself? Do not settle for the products of people you do not understand. Drain the juice from existence and not once gag at its bitterness. Be your own set of factors. That is what Lucien and I are striving to achieve by residing in the same cramped quarters for who knows how long, maybe until we crumble like I know we will, because that's inevitable in every relationship, though I shouldn't be spoiling memories that haven't occurred yet, as I'm becoming even more nihilistic than Lucien is.

And Lucien Carr is also beautiful as he promenades across the sidewalk beside me, hands on a swing at the playgrounds of our childhoods, nervousness deteriorating with each second we spend next to each other without a single complaint from anyone about our near future, and we're cooling down from the heat of our miniature existential crisis to the point where Lucien has begun to speak again.

"Just to warn you, the apartment is incorrigibly messy, so watch your step if there are any loose manuscripts or coffee stains. I don't really know what's there presently, as I was rushing out of the house to the library after a prolonged stretch of ebony skies and spite."

I laugh, propelling my arms back and forth with more velocity than before. "It can't be much worse than my basement."

My basement hovers between total pandemonium and just enough clear space to accommodate my constant position near my computer that also reaches towards the bed and the door so that I may escape to seize food and then promptly return to my writing, and that's about all I need for my chambers, but I assume Lucien isn't living in a basement and demands an elongated area for a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a sitting room at the least, and more space means more clutter, whereas my mind at the computer is the only thing in the basement that's cluttered for me.