bad golf metaphors

i met alice and neil at her place. we had some beers and smoked a bit. we watched a documentary. it was one of those poorly-produced numbers where every ten minutes they stop cutting back and forth between talking celebrity heads to show a faux educational cartoon. usually its the kind of thing that is tolerable at first but once you have seen five different 'schoolhouse rock' takes on the same topic, it's unbearable.
i petted her dog and spoke a bit of baby talk. embarrassingly, the same nonsense i would sing to our cat and, at times, karen.
the beagle looked back up at me with bloodshot eyes, begging just by showing me their whites at the edge. it leaned in and humped the ground to move closer.
"that's enough"
"it's alright. i'll figure out how to let her know i'm done."
the beagle persisted and i cooed at it to make it relax.
"she's not gonna leave you alone."
later we smoked cigarettes on the porch. her menthols. i wanted to be bathed in that cheap, expensive smoke. smothered beyond breath. maybe beyond consciousness. the dog hovered in the doorway, but wouldn't come outside.
"it's a nice night. i kinda wished your place was twice as far so i could have kept walking."
"you've got a nice walk back to look forward to."
"indeed."
the moon was out, and despite all the polluted city light, the air turned navy blue as you looked up. the stars were like a movie scene. what kind of bad joke was life? and where was the fucking punchline already?
that night in conversation i found myself bringing up karen a lot. referencing other women who had come into our lives in the past. admitting i had a tendency to elevate all the strong, beautiful women i met. why was i pissing lines all over the sand? was i making clear to neil that karen was a huge piece of my life? why did i care what i was saying? this shit had to resolve itself. what the fuck could i do?
i had to keep quiet. that was the kind of man i admired. its the kind of man every woman deserves. particularly all my women. madness. god fuck it all. it was stifling silence that had blown this all out of proportion to begin with.
i resolved to live in my addled head anyway. seeking pleasure in many benign friendships and trying to evoke laughter and empathy in my loved ones. fuck it if i could scarcely count on making consistent love again. people just had different clocks. perhaps once she became thirsty, i would be fucking dry. men had lost genitals in accidents, wars. poor fucks couldn't even masturbate. you think they had loveless relationships? of course!
i would be a man: a quiet, resolute motherfucker with drugs in his blood, fucking on his mind, and in time, never on his tongue. happy with what he's fed. maybe just biting other people's innocent hands now and again if properly fueled.
a wordless monk of this debauched modern life.
simple.
easy.
karen's sister kept texting me. SOMEONE needed to meet her at our apartment that night at ten thirty. why did i have a phone? the shit was an expensive luxury and only some soft, suburban cunt like me would be afraid to get in a wreck without one of the goddamn things.
i arranged to leave with neil so i wouldn't have to rush back to my place on foot. it was smooth and premature like the end to so many things. but i couldn't leave it alone and after i saw karen's sister out and got settled, i had an awkward exchange with alice by text. i went to bed that night feeling i had once again pushed too hard.
play it where it lies, son.