There is a reason Film Noir, and other Noir fiction have maintained a certainlevelof popularity over the years. A reason why Bukowski is still a heroand a twisted sort of self-help guru. Noir is French for black. That shouldbe enough right there to explainit.
Black.
Night.
Lonliness-the blackest of wounds to the human heart. What are we willing to risk to avoid it.
We all die, but we die quicker without love. Much quicker. If you don't have love and companionship you are Death walking.
No matter how self-contained you are.No matter how rich, how strong, how beautiful,ifthere isn't someone out there who doesn't judge you you are dead. Peoplesell their souls to fight off the Evil Darkness.
What is the most pathetic thing you've done for love-or, worse yet, just to not be alone.

I have come to the realization that I am lucky in one way, and completely cursed in another.
Ibounce when Ishould splat.I regain my footing when I should fall to my death.I have eyes in theback of my head when I should be blind. I have the reflexesof Superman whenI should be crushed by a semi. Bullets aimed directly atme come no where near me. Dangerous psychopaths respectme.
In short, I am indesructable.
I am also not lovable.
Iam not friendless,I am quite fortunate for the friends I do have, they are good,kind people who want the best for me-but when I talk to them about what is in my mind and my heart their brows furrow and they look at me the way my cat does when she doesn'tunderstand why the food in the dish is not the kind she like sand I try to explain the chemical make-up of cat food to her in French.
I don't get presents or cards at Christmas. I don't get them on my birthday either. No one has ever thrown a party for me,infact I got stood up by all of my friends once on my birthday. I wasn't at my sister's wedding because no one would loan me $250 for a plane ticket. My first nephew was 5 before I had a single picture of him.In the past 18 years I got three phone calls from my sister.My Mom wasgood enough to tell me she wished I'd never been born on a couple of occaisions. Dad just ignored me unless he needed something done or I did something(pretty much anything actually)that warranted criticism. Needless to say they are not a part of my life.
All of the people who are supposed to be the ones I count on aren't there, or impose conditions when they are.
I am a hopeless romantic and have fallen in love many times-only one woman has ever deigned to stoop low enough to return the favor and she did an about face not too long later.
I am the incarnation of confusion.
I fell for someone once. The worst broken heart I ever had. If you saw how well the two ofus got along you'd assume we were together-and people did. Pretty,smart,fun,full of life,we made each other laugh constantly. I was actually lovable when I was a round her.She never gave me a second thought. All my efforts.All the pain,all the hope. Nada
Just me sitting on the edge of my bed with my head in my hands, drunk out of my mind wondering when it would stop hurting
so
FUCKING
much.
My Christmas present that year was watching her fall in love with someone else.
Drink and a smoke in one hand, my dick in the other-to coin a phrase.
All of the impossible tasks we dream of.
Being an astronaut, a rockstar, wealth, power.
All I want is a home.
Love, to connect us to the rest of the Universe with that golden chain.
Solid ground to stand on.
Waking up in the middle of the night with arms wrapped around us.
A cup of coffee brought to us in bed for no particular reason except to be nice to us.
Over time those thoughts dissipate like smoke.
They say we have no actual memory of pain- I think that is a load of crap.
I always thought I was lovable.
Most people think I'm just wierd.
I used to think, many, many years ago that I wanted to die, but I am just so stubborn-like a dog that refuses to lie down.
If you give in,you lose your soul,the bad guys win.
The darkness takes over and the Universe goes black and no matter how shitty your life is, no one wants to be resposible for that.
All things being equal, the most obvious answer usually is the right one.
I just wish the cost of being superhuman wasn't lonliness.
I have humiliated myself
in the past trying to prove that I was lovable. Confusing sex for affection.Confusing having company for having friends.
Some days I can't eat.
Some nights I can't sleep.
I wake up some mornings feeling as though I am about to shatter.
I see idiots surrounded with love. I see pieces of shit with the sweetest girlfriends and wonderful lives.
I'm not complaining, or whining.
I am merely stating the facts as they are.
Do you think it's sad
that sometimes I reach out and touch the wall by my bed,or press my face aginst the cool paint because there isn't someone there with me and Ineed to touch something just to prove I'm alive?
Does it make me less of a man
because sometimes I cry at things that seem small to other people? A dead cat, or dog in the road can bring me to tears, not just because I like animals,but I think about the poor little girl, or old lady,
or miserable bastard like myself that has nothing except their little furry domesticated pet to ward off the crushing,incessant hammer-blows of lonliness.
The empty blackness of slumberless sleep.Waking to smoke a cigarette you don't really want. When the tums aren't enough to make the pain in you stomach go away enough to sleep.Laying vaguely sweating for some unknown reason,having conversations with someone you wish was there-and having to stop and think if you were speaking out loud or not. Not wanting another drink, but praying for sweet oblivion to clobber you into a coma. Over and over and over again,night after fucking night until you realize it's been more than twenty years and you wonder if it hurts less or you have become just dead enough inside to make it more bearable.I know why people do heroine, and stay drunk all the time-because it numbs the pain.For me,drugs and alcohol breakdown the barriers that hold my emotions in check.I see someone sleeping at a bus stop at 3am after 10 Jack and Cokes and my heart shatters into a thousand pieces.I've come close to winding up on the street,I've been so poor that I've gone days without eating.I've been so exhausted,burned out, and depressed that all I could do was sit in front of the TV and pet my cat-for days.
What does it all mean? It means that life can be an enormous crap sandwich force fed to you on a shovel, by assholes that mock you.
Flip them the bird and tell them to fuck off, and right when they're about to pull the trigger and splatter your brains all over the wall, look them square in the eye and laugh like a child posessed by the Devil.