An Open Letter to Henry Rollins

Dear Henry Rollins,

Henry Rollins (photo: Wikimedia Commons)

I know you are a buff and muscular man, so this may be a stupid question (since, clearly, all the hard-bodied guys of the world are macho studmuffins with dinosaur relics for brains), but I will ask it anyway. Henry, my question is this: Do you ever cry?

To clarify: I’m not asking whether When Harry Met Sally makes you get misty-eyed, or if that “a diamond is forever” commercial gives you a lump in your throat. No, my muscle-bound sweet-talker, I’m wondering whether The Infamous Henry Rollins has ever wept like a child over a woman, a man, himself, or the world and the sheer loneliness of existence on planet Earth.

Sometimes, reading your work, I’m sure that you have. You seem like a sensitive soul, one who puts on a gruff exterior to protect himself from further, unnecessary pain. That makes sense, after all. But sometimes, when I listen to your spoken-word records or read your tales from the road, I wonder if you give a damn about anyone at all.

Well, anyone of the female persuasion, that is. Okay, to be fair, perhaps you prefer the company of men? I just mean—romantically speaking—is there someone special in your life? It seems to me like there was someone there, in that heart-shaped space, once upon a time, but he or she is long gone. I am reading her (yes, her—I suspect you’re a hetero guy, after all) in between your lines, trying to picture her betrayal, the angle of the knife as she slid it in between your shoulders and tried to separate your flesh from bone.

How many times did she get to you? Once? Twice? Three or more unlucky times? How many fucked-up love affairs did it take to make your heart go cold?

Maybe I’m getting it all wrong, Henry. Perhaps you are secretly boffing a model who likes monster truck rallies, someone you met on the set of Jackass: The Movie?

I just wonder about you sometimes, because you come off so very jaded and just ever-so-slightly misogynistic. (I hate that word, that label, but if I am honest, yes, you are a bit of a woman-hating bastard on certain pages, certain days.) Is this just part of the Rollins mystique, or will you tell me straight up what put this spin on your world?

Perhaps a confession of mine can be traded for your own? Here goes: Once upon a time I had a huge crush on you, Henry darling. During my college days I swooned over your prose, your x-ray on the modern world that exposed the broken bones we all claimed were okay, nothing to worry about. I shared your cynicism, spat on the idea of love. Solipsists, raise your fists and give the finger to that external world! I pictured you and me, together, on either side of your soft-covers. And somehow I imagined that your words made sense in my head because we had something important in common, something that could blossom if we were ever in the same room, something I would hesitate to call love, but something very similar indeed. You would see that I was the person you’d been missing, that I was the answer to your cry for help, and miraculously I would be your saviour—although, at that point, I could barely roll my lazy bones to class on time, much less mend troubled relationships.

How absurd! How embarrassing! But it’s true, Henry, terribly true. I never mailed any of my letters to you, thank god. I was trying so hard not to sound like a creepy little fan-girl, obsessive and possibly dangerous. I only succeeded by a small margin. Too cool to admit my lust, I said little of anything at all. Today I probably still sound like the creepy groupie I (still) want to avoid being, but I promise not to show up on your doorstep, or write you letters that talk about sniffing your boxers while you’re out on tour. (Whoops!)

I guess my curiosity stems from the fact that public figures like yourself are people we all feel we know, people we seem to own in some curious way, but, ultimately, they are people we don’t actually know at all. I don’t know what you’re like when you’re alone and lonely. Do you spend your time wisely? Do you shoot pool or go to the movies? Is any day ever just a normal day for you? And, of course, I have to wonder… do you date?

This is all idle curiosity, since I’m now a happily married woman. Besides, I can’t imagine you’re reading this, thinking, “Fuck, this is what I’ve been missing—a long distance girlfriend!” I can’t picture you flying up to frigid Montreal on a booty call, or courting some girl you barely know with cynical love poems. I can differentiate between reality and lunacy, these days. Nevertheless, I occasionally still find myself wondering what an almost 50-year-old man is like in bed. What are your perversions and preferences? Would you be gentle or treat a girl roughly?

Henry, dear, how do you like it? Write me some explicit material, and tell me how you feel when you cum.

Love,
Laura