**

I am a freak of nature. Yep, no doubt about it and no apologies for it. It is after all who I am and if I can't be me, who's gonna be? I have done quite the bit of soul searching in the past several weeks. I didn't flinch but rather looked deep down to the core of Tommy. You know what I found? It's a little bit dark in there ... OK,it's pitch black. I guess I forgot to pay the electric bill. Go figure. Once I got the torches lit and looked around a bit, I saw rats as big as poodles eating roaches the size of dinner plates.
There are webs all over the place as thick as cables dripping with jelly that burns the flesh if brushed up against. (Note to self: pick up more triple anibiotic ointment and bandages.) Ensconced in those webs are very large, very scary spiders, venom dripping from their fangs and eyes glowing an eerie, almost otherworldly blue. They make a squishy sound when they shuffle to devour anything that gets caught in their webbing. Piles of small bones, possibly the bones of children litter the ground under their nests. Hearing that sound almost made me turn back.
I didn't want to go any farther, but there was something in the corner. I was drawn, compelled even to face the vermin because I had to see what it was. I could no more have turned away than I could rip my arm out of the socket and sit down with some fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti. It was a body. I could tell it had been there for years. It was curled up in a fetal position and the ribs were sticking through the remnants of a shirt that had long since decomposed around them. The legs and arms were sticks barely covered with flesh, pulled taut after years of being locked away in the dark.
I reached out to turn the body and it gasped, heaving in breath. I think it was at that point that I shat myself ... or maybe it was the spiders. Either way, it was not a pretty sight or smell. I got down on my knees beside it and gently, grabbing it by the arm, rolled it over to get a look at it's face. I stared into my own eyes and wept. Pretty melodromatic, huh?
The truth is, I came face-to-face with an ugly little secret that I have been hiding away for years ... I love. That's it. That's all. I love. OK, so it goes a little deeper than that. I don't love. anybody. Not a bit. It's all about me baby. (Ethyl Marie, is that boy on something? Didn't he just say he loved ... and then turned around and said he don't love? Check his eyes and while you're down at the Super Saver, pick up one of them there new fangled drug tests. We need to get that boy a-pissin!)
Yeah BillyRayBobJuniorSamples, that's what I said. And I'm not stoned. I don't let people in. I lock them out, them meaning most of you. I do this mainly for their (your) own safety. (see spiders and rats above for further details) As much as I hate to say it I think that also partially applies to my wife and kids but I'm just telling you what I saw down there.
Every once in a while, once in a blue moon or maybe even longer than that. Aw shit, OK. Honestly I can count the times it's happened in my life on one hand and don't even have to use my thumb. In fact, I still have fingers available. It's a very rare thing indeed. But once in a while, someone comes into my life that I do want in. I do love and brother, when I love my flame burns as bright as the freaking sun. The problem is it's so hot, so fucking brilliant that it ends up incinerating whoever gets in it's path leaving them a scorched husk. What usually happens is the object of my affection (and it could be male or female. I'm an equal opportunity destroyer) is overwhelmed by me and runs screaming into the night, bleeding from the ears. I get depressed, pissed, upset and throw that little bastard back to the rats and spiders.
Why am I like this? I don't have a clue. Really. I do know it almost ruined a relationship that I thought I wanted so badly I could taste it. Thank God the overhead fire system kicked in and cooled me off in time. I think this one can be saved boys and girls. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a basement to clean, rats and spiders to kill and a body to feed and nourish back to good health. Anybody wanna help? Ethyl just got back with the cream and bandages ... Anybody?