~prayers for 2026; thrown back and skipped across the pond of the past. letter to a lovesick boy. signed, my algebra cheerleader.

Father don't you know You have made me into a quiet man ... look at me I see you as you see me...look at me Change your heart cause I am already spoken for Change your heart

Bergen, Norway — author photo by the always lovely Bee RN, my Norwegian Socialist/Photog.

___________________________________

Dearest ________:

Clarity is where the inception of incentive lays down to love. I am aware of this. I am. It is a late night and I am going walking because it is good for me. Because I need my strength. Because I need to make decisions soon. A man without decisions is not a man. He is undesirable. If I cannot love myself then who will have me? What measure of respect could I give them? And what man has time to consider all of that, anyway?

My heart is closed. It has seized. Like the internal combustion engine, all of those millions of perfectly timed intermittent explosions powering a carriage forward. My carriage is my life. And my life has stalled.

These are my own faults, and since I learn from my mistakes and through virtually nothing else, my faults are the font of which I will draw the knowledge to get my pecker out and double down. When will the part of my life come when what is possible becomes what was possible?
I think about this. I do. Daily, it seems.

I am taking examinations now for mathematics I had never learned before. I am ashamed that there is something that is difficult for me to do, and that it has come back around to kick me high and hard between the skinny shanks of what, at thirty-two, has finally become my ass.

My heart has seized.
My heart has seized and while she may not be the answer, 
I cannot move until I unstick my heart.
She’s cut her hair again. Short and black. Her skin is paler than ever.
When will the world turn over and say no to me?
It is something that comes in every man’s life. Think of our fathers, and our father’s fathers. The day they realized that there was something they could not accomplish within their lifetime. The moment they resigned themselves to normalcy. The car they could not afford, the second home. Their childhood dreams of being a ballplayer or a boxer, dashed.
I don’t call. I don’t write. I don’t do any of these things.
I believe with a long enough stopgap, these things reset.
It’s funny how the sound of a voice _____.
The window has not closed, but the storm is on its way.
I must pass my exams. The city has not moved.
I am reading old letters tonight in a city I thought I was done with.
I know too many of you now.
Too many people when I am a solitary boy at heart.
I went to the druggist and tried to fill my script. There was a problem as usual.
I hate needing a chemical hand to force my head down so i may perform algebraic blowjobs.
I hate needing.
I can close my eyes and go to sleep and wake up three days later and the need will be gone but then so will my grade point average.
I love being able to do the work. It’s a solution. Something learned. An application.
Like making a girl come. Like that. Each girl is different. Like safecracking.
Then you find that perhaps it is time to make a choice.
I know what this means for the very first time in my life.
I need to make a decision.
Or rather, I need to walk the path of a man who is determined to see it through.
I want to believe when a girl says that she loves me.
And I want it to be for the right reasons.
I may never get you back, Jane. But you are the model I have set in my mind for what love should be. 

I cannot change this and I do not really want to.

I am living in a basement. Ants walk over me sometimes. There is a 9mm combat pistol three feet from my bed. The carpet is thin. It is a cave and it is helping me get my energies back. I lift weights. Sometimes I train with my Jo staff in the yard. Three foot dowel made of oak and hardened by the oil and dirt from countless hours of forms. 1” diameter. A connected guy stopped by the house today for a package. I watch the world go by, my reward system again smashed by the amphetamine fuselage.

I think I am coming to the conclusion that just because I can see other girls, perhaps it would be a good time not to. Like, at all. Self-realization is easier alone. And people talk, and I want to be free of that ilk. And by all rights, I shouldn’t have time for playing about. I don’t have time. I just don’t have any idea on how to manage time, either. And therein could be my downfall.

I considered making a numerical list sequence (uberfiltered) of all of the women I lost to Jane’s memory. We are talking dozens of girls over a period of damn near a decade. I still might, it would be a fantastic personal expose. They were all beautiful. They were all intelligent. They were all incredible lovers, artists, worker bees, more. All walks of life. All nationalities. All histories. Some were rich. Some were poorer than I ever have been. All pushed aside over a memory. At least three-fourths of them are married now. I don’t care. How amazing is it that the sound of her voice, or a new photograph up on one of the social networking sites we’re both married to and retarded against, can still drop me like a rock?

I guess I loved her because she taught me about holidays. Taking the time. Points of the year (or the day, or the hour, or even the minute) that were altogether special and blessed and put aside for especial appreciation. To appreciate the light. And it’s dark where I am now, and I want to feel safe while holding on to that stone part of me. I want to let the light in a little bit and abort this ugly personae that seems to be building up around me, already. I got to be the intelligent one and have the dark reputation. And I want to get back to that part of myself again. 

Reputations are forever but they can be absolved with large amounts of
money or similar doses of acclaim. Fame has never been my strong point but I never did believe in fighting fair. The only unfair fight is the one you lose, after all.

But first I need to finish this. Men have deadlines built into everything they do. It isn’t enough to be pretty. It helps, but it isn’t enough. Believe me, I know. I need to get through this final set of classes, get off this shit, and get back to work.

Time is running out.

Sincerely, 


L.Christopher.


FIN. ~lchristopher. Thursday, November 20th 2025, 12:10PM, Fort George, Manhattan, NYC.