My Love Affair with Bukowski

Of course we have never met, but I have been in love with Bukowski for years. I sometimes think of him as my lover, one I have to sneak out of the house to meet in a seedy bar where we drink each other in and smoke until we lose our voices. 

My mother thinks he’s mean and doesn’t care for him at all so he would definitely not have been invited home for dinner – but I don’t think he was the type of man you brought home to momma anyway….

Bukowski’s words sear my mind and heart and his tone befriends the cynic in me that somehow still holds onto hope.

I’ve often asked myself how could I relate to this man’s words so intensely?

Why do I return to him again and again?

Perhaps it’s because I have always leaned more on my masculine side, unable to show my vulnerability, or our shared disdain for the mundane. It could be because he wrote without recognition until his 50’s and never gave up on his calling, a commitment many cannot understand.

But I think it goes beyond that – I think I love him so because he was just a cool mother f$&@ker!, writing vividly about the idea of pain that occurs for no reason – his own pain, pleasure, crudeness, and sheer boredom with basic shit.

I rarely go around quoting or identifying with a man’s words …but “sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.”

I’ve collected some of my favorite quotes and warn you they are R-rated and not even close to warm and fuzzy. But if you want some down and dirty truths to remind you that we are all flawed and just trying to find our way to the motherland then feast your eyes on these:

“Understand me. I’m not like an ordinary world. I have my madness, I live in another dimension and I do not have time for things that have no soul.”

““I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.”

“If you’re losing your soul and you know it, then you’ve still got a soul left to lose.”

“You boys can keep your virgins. Give me hot old women in high heels with asses that forgot to get old.”

“Find what you love and let it kill you.”

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I’m not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you’ve felt that way.”

“Drink from the well of yourself and begin again.”

“I knew that I was dying. Something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become as them, accept. Then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest bit. It needn’t be much, just a spark. A spark can set a whole forest on fire. Just a spark. Save it.”

“You have to die a few times before you can really live.”

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” 

“Love breaks my bones and I laugh.”

“Stop insisting on clearing your head – clear your fucking heart instead.”