I’m out of what scientists call cortisol.  When you sit in traffic, and you’re frustrated, coritsol is the chemical in your brain that calms you down. 

I ran out of cortisol sometime during the surge in Iraq.  And the cortisol I do have left malfunctions.  It tells my body to increase insulin levels which crashes my blood sugar, which tells my hypothalamus that glucose is being starved from my brain, which tells my adrenal gland to increase adrenaline, which creates stress.

That’s what conflict looks like at the chemical level. 

******

I drive a lot.  My wife and I drive a lot.  We go places.  We go across country.  

We were driving up from Virginia last spring and a country song came on the radio that talked about love and intimacy in a Alan Jackson twang.  We both didn't say anything.  A tear welled up in her eye.  I still didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. 

We talked about it later.  Months later.  In counseling.  About the all consuming presence of that which wasn't there.   

In those moments, when Alan Jackson comes on the radio, I still don't know what to say.  When I kiss her, and her lips are tight, when I am driving and there's silence and I look over and I see the drying creek bed on her cheek where a tear has fallen and this woman who is brave and vulnerable and smarter than me and strong is crying, I don't know what to say. 

I wonder what that silence is at the molecular level.

******

 A combination of six parts hydrogen and twelve parts carbon will create combustible gasoline. When combined with oxygen and a heat source, motion is created. 

******

Men talk about pussy.  They talk about getting laid.  Fucking.  I never got that.  I was never good at it.  Now I get it. 

In that silence I sometimes get mad.  Intimacy.  At its mechanical level, intimacy is fucking, or at least that's how I associated it.  Feelings of attachment derived from physical contact.  That's men. To regain our intimacy, we must fuck. 

There is the other argument. Sex is a by-product of intimacy. 

Oxytocin is a chemical released in the brain during sexual intercourse.  It is a chemical of attachment.  It is also released when snorting cocaine.  It is a chemical of addiction.

******

Before the war, we pulled off into this wheat field at two in the morning and had sex under the stars.   The air was crisp and warm and dry.  It was a summer night on a rolling hill out west.  I could smell the earth.  It was a western night.  To this day, I don't know how, but we lost her shirt.  We drove off without it.  

There was another time, closer to deployment, when she said she'd knew we'd be divorced within six months of getting back.  That was on the way to the airport.  That's something they don't tell you about before war.  You travel a lot beforehand.  Pre-deployment is a combination of drawn-out goodbyes.  When it comes time to actually say goodbye, there's nothing left. It's just another trip to the airport. 

After that, when I got back, we fought.  Not bicker.  We kicked.  We punched.  She broke a bottle over my head.  My ear rang for two days. I bruised.  She bruised.  It was great.  It was intimate and physical and safe and honest. I know how it sounds.  But it was beautiful.

 ******

A combination of potassium nitrate, carbon, and sulphur creates gunpowder.  When introduced to a heat source, ignition occurs.

******

 The best time in Iraq is in helicopters.  Flying in a blackhawk, nap of the earth over Baghdad, the women walking in black burkas, kids playing soccer, men squatting in the shade, markets, grass, pigeons coops up in the rooftops.  It's beautiful.  You have ear plugs.  You wear body armor.  With the doors open the wind blows against that small bit of your cheeks and neck that isn't covered, I could close my eyes and be back in Texas on the highway out of Austin.

Therapy is the internal combustion engine.  

 ******

 Three months ago I went to a dentist and he asked me if I grinded my teeth. I said no.

 I sit in traffic now.  In the city.  I think about getting rid of my car.  On the highway when the cars aren't moving I get angry.  I noticed the other day that my jaw was clenched.  I was grinding my teeth.  Now I chew gum, but still, sometimes I'll catch my jaw tight and try to stop it.  Open it up and breathe and wait for the air to come in through the vents or waft in with the exhaust fumes and breathe and breathe and breathe, but it never seems like I can take a deep breath.  Not without the wind. 

I think about missing things.  Like the wind.  Like sex.  Like intimacy.  I work in a cloud.  Never focused.  On the road the focus is simply forward.  With sex the focus is simply her and me.  I know it wouldn't change anything.  Not without intimacy.  Like sitting in a car in traffic.  All the components of the open road with none of the foward motion.