I'm An Addict

I’m made smile by the simplicity. When it’s good, it’s good. Quite often it’s good. Great, in fact. Clever words and remarks catch my ear.

I was taught to surround myself by the things and people I like, in that order.

I’ve always been a sucker for intelligent representation. Blunt remarks turn me on. I’d fuck a phrase and be unphased for days. Gladly, I’d chop the letters with a credit card and sniff them through a hundred dollar bill, as if I had a credit card… or a hundred dollar bill.

The bright eyes on that curvy S have me chasing its tail. But I’m not one for commitment, I need all of them, I need B because she’s a double D. I need Z (my nickname for N) because she’s always there for me. Wherever I look I see her giving support.

When the right phrase comes together, it’s hard to deny I’m attracted. Infatuated, even. There’s fascination sprinkled on the surface of an obsessive need to indulge.

Call me crazed, but submissive intelligent wordplay aware of its role and how it’s seen, well, there’s nothing like it. What of the moment you can mold words which want to be molded infinitely? I’m turned on just by the notion. The possibility of endless possibilities is exciting.

It’s best when words understand what you’re trying to do. When they present easy, clear and concise methods of elaborating or simplifying the intended message without obscuring any of its importance.

The best times I’ve had were made possible only because of discussing the things I wished were understood with a single sentence. When I focus and understand the way I wish to be understood. When I’ve found a way to download all of my insecurities and fears into some visual discussion with myself.

When I can’t I face other structured words. Dig deep in search of the meaning, of what I can take back from that one sentence that’s haunted me, that’s still there waiting for my full attention. Waiting for me to arrive with an assured solution brought back from my endless searching, for me to say “I’ve got it!” and lead the way.

The problem I can’t seem to resolve is when I’ve found something useful and become intrigued. When words in unrelated work have value and are seen worth my mental space. I’m drawn away and I find that I dwell on this knowledge more than where my focus should rest.

The twisting and turning begins, and clever comments are added here and there, I say them out loud to assure my tongue trusts what my mind believes. Minutes turn to hours, hours to days, to weeks, to months, before I know it these words share all my efforts and have an entirely different meaning and purpose to the worth they should be assisting, but they’re valuable. They’re equal, but different.

But then I’m stuck again. Not knowing where to go is no excuse for inaction. I find more words, and learn more, and study more, and work harder. Before I know it, I’m surrounded by incomplete pieces running my life, consuming every second. There’s no room for other things in my life other than these words. The words get the game and play along, careful to not disrupt order, and this level of cooperation sucks me further in. We’re struggling to keep away from each other.

Meanwhile, the original work takes a seat further and further away from the front of the line where it’s belonged all along.

The longer without my focus, the more obscured my original intention in writing it become. The easier it is to draw me away. I keep looking over at S, Z and all the other letters of the alphabet thinking, “There’s something relevant worth finding there.”

Like a drug I find myself overwhelmed. It tears holes through my life and paragraphs begin to fade into obscurity. They begin to vanish into the background as I lose interest in all I’ve done. All I’m capable of.

As things thin out and the cluster clears, the stragglers veer into the shadows, and at the far end of this abandoned word soup, patiently still waiting for my attention, the first sentence from the original work. The true purpose, the meaning, the ALL that should have been from the start.

Clarity is restored and with the realization that all I’ve needed from the beginning was with me all along, I delete the rest. Start from scratch, focus on only what has directly resulted from the original material. Any influence that went into ONLY the original sentence comes along and before long it grows, changing, the same twisting and turning, now matured and refined take place. All I’ve learned becomes part of this material and the sentence becomes a story. The story of my journey to clarity and the relativity of the sentence in reference to that.

The sentence was: ‘I am an Addict’.

By Jack Thomas