I love you.

I’m not entirely certain who you are, but rest assured at this moment my love is as real and thriving as anything I’ve ever felt. Sure it may be linked to the liquor coursing through my veins, but to dismiss that is to dismiss every emotion we’ve ever had tinged with another as a pre-existing condition. I love you the same way a drunk man loves his barmate, truly, unabashedly and with an enthusiasm that I only wish I could harbor when I’m sober. Should I, could I let you see this behind any other lens but amber I would, I would force the world to smile and see that the beauty lies not in what is known, but what doesn’t have to be known. We are alive, these impossible little nothings on the ass end of a galaxy in a cluster of hundreds of thousands in a universe holding exponentially more. It’s beautiful. In all that mass, here you are. A man. A woman. A whatever the fuck you want to be. Feeling, hoping, loving, fearing, and hating in a world that is so small it would be a single atom in the entirety of your body in comparison to the universe.

It’s simple. MY GOD, isn’t it simple. Love. Love because what else do you have time for? Hate? Why. They’ll be dead. You’ll be dead. All soon, all soon enough. Why bother with it. Why bother with wealth? What is a torrent of floating paper in comparison to the smile of even a single genuinely happy human face?

You don’t have to. I don’t care. Because I love you. Because you don’t believe me and yet it remains the same regardless. A am becometh the love of the world and you are sole purveyor of my joy. You are wrong, but you are right. Not from what you say, but from the fact that it comes from your lungs. You hate them, whatever they are. They have wronged you and damn them for doing so. Yes, yes. I know they are all the same. But can you imagine. What if they weren’t? Can you imagine. Now, now. Don’t laugh at me. It’s never a kind thing to laugh at a drunk man.

Sure another round, now shush.  You can hate them. Do it. It doesn’t matter. Don’t you get it? No. It doesn’t. None of it does. What? Why would I take and kill and maim and fuck, and rape and murder when none of it matters? If I have nothing to gain, nothing to fear, nothing to acknowledge but the sheer insignificance of my own existence, how could I do anything but smile?

We don’t matter, yet somehow we ARE! That’s it. That’s the meat of it. We are a process half-complete, half dead and even less alive and…beautiful. When you fear nothing, believe nothing outside of the now and  the preservation of the future how can you feel anything but awestruck? I could take what’s not mine, but…why? Want? Want doesn’t matter.

No. No. I know people are dying. All over everywhere. That’s…now listen. That’s it. The whole of it. Why would I take what isn’t mine when there are others who can benefit 100% from something a grudgingly accept less than 1% from?

I need so much to be so incrementally happier. Why would I bother with the physicality when I know that I can nurse something so much more fundamental?

Yes, yes. I suppose I’m up my own ass. Why wouldn’t I be? It’s my ass I’ll do what I like with it. The point…the point I’m trying to make it that we had it right back then.  No, not the communists you fucking ham. No, order the burgers, its fine. Yeah I’ll pay, just listen would you? I’m saying that when the cards are down what matters other than that which preserves life and allows it to prosper. It’s not always possible. Least of all now. I know. Stop. Yes, I know about the cows. We’re all hypocrites, sooner you realize that the sooner you can understand the irony of the universe. We had to. No, that’s what I’m saying. We had to kill then. Back then we had no choice. I’m, no, I’m not saying stop now. I’m saying do it better. Someday, yeah fuck off with the lot of it. No it’ll still be there. We’ll grow it, give it time!  Will you stop! I’m just…fucking hell.

No, it’s not perfect. Perfect is a construct that we created to keep us unhappy, keep us creating, pushing, striving. Content is where it is. You have clothes, food, love, and the rest follows. Answers come easy then, when you can focus.  But you don’t need them. All you need is- Yes I know the fucking song I was raised on it. No, stay away from the jukebox. I don’t…fine play the song. I’ll be here.

I don’t feel like you’re listening? Oh? You’re not. Good. More time for me to explain. Come to think of it I suppose you’re not really necessary.

No, I’m not saying you should kill yourself. I’m saying that- No, listen. LISTEN! I said I love you. I do. Just like the man beside us who hasn’t said a word. We’re here. We’re all here. 75 years ago there were people right here. Right here with the exact same thoughts. Just as drunk, just as happy. It’s valid. It’s all valid. Alcohol shuts down the ego is all, makes you less concerned with excess, with tomorrow. You stop doing that the world makes a lot more sense. You’ve got enough. You’ll have to work for it, but everyone should have enough. No, I know they didn’t earn it. But who asked to be born? Who asked their mom to wake up poor, broke and starving? No one asked that. It’s the want that breeds the greed. No, not always. No, nothing is always. Exceptions to everything, even the exceptions.

Look, all I’m saying is its simple. You love hard enough the rest becomes easy. Everyone’s a hypocrite. Everyone’s wrong because there is always some bastard who disagrees. But what no one NO ONE can take from you is that love. So I love you. I love him. I love her. And I love this entire thing. Horrible, crushing, broken, unfair as it is. Because without it I would just be a bunch of atoms floating free form in some cosmic nothing. But now, right now it’s just the lot of us. Billions of Billions of atoms together drinking billions more in one fine moment of unity before we have to say good bye and go our separate ways. We breathe the breath of history’s legends. Noble and ignoble.

That’s it. We think in terms of I. I’m not here. We are. We are all protons, strung together by  some electronic fog. Uncertainty guides us, decides this that and the other thing. And that terrifies us. It’s only here, in the drink, that things become better. You have to see that. I know I’ve said it before, but you see it now don’t you?

You don’t? Ah, well that’s a thing. No, no. Of course not. I still love you. I’ll love you until I sober up. Parts of me will love you even then. Yes, him too. It’s alright don’t feel bad. Just another drunk on his way to the grave. I’ll get the next round too. Don’t worry about that. That’s tomorrow us’s problem. Who knows, maybe we’ll be dead.

Yes, exactly! That’s the spirit!