buy the ticket, take the ride

***// www.jhny-drko.blogspot.com //***

"You could have all the money in the world the world, and not be able to afford moments like these." -Romeo Crennel, after winning a Superbowl as an assitant coach of the New England Patriots

I have needed time to think. These past few months have brought about many decisions that I choose to make in deep secrecy, but like any writer I beg and push you to break through the code. Crack the cipher. Read these words. Enjoy a smile.

I have been enjoying a grateful audience lately, and the gaping mouths and shocked faces have given me all the absolution I have found to be necessary to continue. Maybe... just maybe, I've been holding on to all the words you've been dying to read.

Life has been pushing on in its usual, unforgiving way. I have been in a state of blind reality mixed with drunken nights and poured over rocks. My pill bottles are still shaking silent and empty. There's always more than one thought boiling in my head as I sit on the banister of my balcony smoking cigarettes. Among today's thoughts are grim realizations that I have no model examples to follow; I draw most of my self-loathing not from a jealousy of you, but from a faded spark de vie of a former John E. that I cannot reclaim; and finally a calm acceptance that even someone as pissed off and jaded as me can use a little love everyone once in a while.

Maybe I need a sunrise. I'm tired of the sunset. I've been having these Chasing Amy moments lately and I mean that in a way that has to do nothing with my supreme love and adoration for lesbians. I think that makes sense. But it's that cipher I'm laying out for you again. Good luck.

I am in need of a change of style. Maybe that, or maybe just a shift towards a reliving former version of me. I can't be stuck on some idealistic vision of perfection. I have found it. I have hunted it and there is a trophy case of mine that would make you drool and ponder one EPIC WTF. But instead I am back on the hunt for that 1 billionth percent difference in you (whoever you are) that makes you perfect to me. I'm out to break equations. Solve for johnny = r-h, if h = hopeless and r = romantic. Who says math can't be romantic? (Thank You Kumar Patel)

Anyways, time to turn in my angsty/love sucks ballads. Time to race the sun to rising at the shore. Time for that solace in sadness feeling to end. H.S.T. said to take the fucking ride. So the romantic is on board and ready to storm his newest warpath. Find me sleeping on a Jersey shoreline. I'll be dreaming while the ocean whispers me benediction to laugh and wear a fine smile on my face. The ocean will whisper to me that you are happy and to let me know I'm not forgotten. I will kiss that salty Atlantic breeze and you will know that I have never forgotten you.

I raise a toast to myself. It's healthy, for real. "To Johnny Johnson: this juice is definitely worth the squeeze."