Little light, little blight
kept in guard, spilled, but slight
ground quakes, forgiven shakes
the sound, the curtain fight
They know not, they see not
they run not, the still knot’s
forgive shakes, the ground quakes,
enemy, friend, enemy again
Morose corrosion, fill the glass
slight the hand til’ darkness pass
escape with blood, but never life
the little blight becoming light
and so, here we are again
Why does no one tell you that from 20-25 your entire perception of the world, the deepest longings of your soul, everything that seemingly makes you “you” will change. Will be turned over. Spilled out. Deconstructed, Reconstructed, maybe more than once. Why does no one tell you? Why aren’t there classes? Why don’t the millions of those who have passed through the fire tell us? Whoever you think you are right now, in five years you won’t recognize or remember this you. Life will take you and batter your sails over and over and over. Hopeful naivety is a luxury of the young.
Not that it’s all doom & gloom post college, far from it. It’s simply that you are no longer that person. You don’t know why, perhaps you didn’t even notice the change until it had happened. But you wake up one morning, somewhere in your 26th year and you realize the immediacy of things. We are not immortal. There is no later. There is no someday. Everything has deep, rich, beautiful meaning. It’s as if the film that blocked out all the bad in early years was also hiding the good. You see the good and bad play like light and shadow, never overwhelming each other, but because of the existence of one, it validates the existence of the other. You realize that pain = growth and growth = life and life well lived = peace. To hold contradictions in a symbiotic realm is the beginning of wholeness. You don’t need to fight anymore, there is no advisory. There is nothing to prove. Nothing to state. There is no “you” that is worth a damn.
Meaning no longer takes it’s lifeblood from success. Success is the enemy of meaning. It distorts truth, by inflating your sense of uniqueness. O that our elders would stop striving for the unattainable by methods that have been disproven time and time again. O that they would realize they can light the way to true growth, they can illuminate a better way. The only way.
If time travel becomes a reality I will pen an open letter to my twenty year old self. “Dear twenty year old me; in five years you will be dead. Do not fight it, do not fear it, do not confuse success with meaning. Die. Resurrect. And live”.
Every twenty year old dies at twenty-five. O that someone would have told us.
Hear that? No? The wind…it’s telling…or is it red?
Sometimes eyes decide. listen,
open your hand, touch sound and live
Steal as much fits in a pocket
dust road…he’s alive, only old.
Scrape along as best we can
sycamore cane, eyes in focus, demon trees
arms like water holding us down
mind tricks, parlor eyes, charlatans, fools errand
so young to know so much, be that as it may….
“Wait, listen, see…why cant you see?”
You are young…you have not lived to fail
how do you know what wisdom tastes like if you have not lived?
ask, receive, knock, open…apathy grows with silver hair!
Oh you will see in time…”I do not mean..” “So you agree?”
hear that? no? fool.
The king has lost all his clothes…
Brother wind these gears
sister paint on a smile, my arms have fallen asleep
When the light doesn’t seem to make a dent in the recesses of the mind anymore where do we run? If fleeing seems like the only viable option to keep insanity at bay, where can we turn? When we realize that our candidates for the most powerful political figure in the world are accurate depictions of our construct of Christ, where can we find forgiveness? When love, peace, justice, hope, tomorrow, equality, sanctity, and wisdom become buzz-words for a culture too absorbed in their reflection too reflect, who would rather tweet a picture of themselves in the mirror wearing a love promoting ironic t-shirt than offer selfless love to the homeless man they crop out of their next Instagram post, where can we find redemption? Are we lost? Have we gone “too far”? Is caring just another brand we can use to promote our ego to a thousand strangers? ‘See! I’m a good person! I have a lesbian friend who has a black girlfriend who just became a pastor…Im open, I don’t judge, I don’t hate” blah blah blah. If the pendulum swings too far in either direction you’ll always be late…or early. But never on time.
Why do I envy the homeless man I just gave a crumpled $5 too? Why does that act of giving him money not satiate the monster inside me that is clawing at every pin-hole of light? Why does my post #blacklivesmatter not give my heart and brain any respite from fear and anger? Why do apathy and all out rebellion both sound like the best option? Are we this sick? Have we traveled off the path? Or we were never on the path in the first place? Have we always been Midas’s idiot brother? Everything we touch turns to shit.
Cynicism will kill you. So we choose hope. Sometimes blindly. But what else can we do? There is no “we” in self-awareness. The burden of change is on me. I will no longer try and make sense of my radical-muslim brothers that only see taking life as something worth living for. I will no longer try and wrap my brain around the teenage boys who decide that killing their friends and teachers is their Holy cause. I will not try and rationalize away the murders of countless black men and woman by those sworn to serve and protect us. I will not point a finger at anyone. Instead I will focus on the thousands of ways every moment that I am nothing like Christ. I am nothing like love. I am nothing like awareness. I will be still and listen. I will feel and watch, and when the beast is awoken I will set him loose in my own brain and soul, to tear out and destroy every part of me that wants to point to anything else as the problem. I am the problem. We are the problem. Our passive, comfortable, egotistical, white-washed, apathetic, American hearts are the problem. Human suffering is the most valuable commodity to a generation that has figured out how to monetize hate and love. Your t-shirt with a bold phrase eschewing inequality was made by a child slave a million miles away…don’t forget to double-tap.
She fumbled with her keys at the door, scratching, pawing, one key then the next. They made a dull clang as they hit the welcome mat, she cursed under her breath as she leaned down. Finally victorious she stumbled inside, fumbled with the light switch, wincing at the sun-bright bulbs. “I need a drink” she mumbled to herself as she discarded her bag and coat onto the floor. No Gin “shit”, vodka will do. The sofa seemed to absorb her body, she put her feet up and began nursing the bottle.
“What a night. What a complete waste of a night”. Her phones screen kept lighting up next to her…she looked but didn’t respond. ‘Leave me alone you asshole!…sorry Mom”. Contacts, edit, delete. The click her phone made when she closed it seemed the most final sound she had ever heard.
The sun filled her living room and slowly nudged her awake. Her head felt full of gravel. She reached for her phone, “twenty three missed calls!? Who’s number is that?……oh, right”. CLICK.
The lights flickered for a moment. The mirrors made the room feel like a galaxy, an endless possibility. The floor was smooth and unforgiving. The music had a strange echo…the trails of melody seeming to go on forever, into all the corners and unseen crevasses. Two deep breaths. Her eyes closed in momentary preparation. Her mind racing to anywhere but here. A million thoughts crowding out the now. Memories more vivid than her heart thumping behind her ocean eyes. Why had mother never gone on that trip? When did she ride a bike for the first time? Did she leave the stove on? Did she shower? Would she get into Columbia? Another deep breath…Focus. Breathe. This. Now. Here. Nowhere else. Ever.
Suddenly her mind sped up, racing like a freight train. But now it was racing forward…with a singular direction. The memories faded like passing cities. The music, the music swept through her veins like wildfire. She must respond…but not yet. Not her time. Almost. Wait.
Now. She stepped forward. Into the grim light. Her mind empty. Her body responding to the endless melody. Her heart carrying her body forward in artful motion. Turning, careening, falling with grace. Falling but catching at the last possible moment. Like a flame dancing in wind. Unpredictable, but controlled. Every muscle, every nerve responding in beautiful union. The melody pulsing through her fingertips. Her hands reaching in silent prayer, unknown praises.
Chaos suspended. The world quiet for a moment. The moment of step. A step of faith. Believing that your body will obey. Beauty is in that step. True virtue is in that belief. Beauty that will bring tears. Tears at simply living. Breathing. Pulsing blood. The chaos, and worry, and noise, and despair, and hurt can be lost in that step.
She is suspended in slow motion. Her body not her own for those moments. Awake dear soul. Feel your life pulsing. Feel the motion of a thousand lives, colliding together every moment. Enough energy to power the world. Do not hesitate. Do not minimize. Do not look away. Step.
On the road for so long. The tiredness only lessoned by conversation. Watch the sky at night, drink to warm the blood, friends (or what we call friends) to keep our souls from running away with our minds. Funny colors in your milk dream eyes. Sentence asphyxiation. Rude to the point of boiling. All this on the road. The road. The road. How many misanthropic analogies can we attribute to such a benign form? The road. Cluster the stars closer together…drink until they align. Quote Jack to feel heady, hell, Ginsberg and you’re a genius. E.E. if you want to cry…or laugh. Elliot to die alone. The road. What is it? Anything that takes you from A to B? The longest journey of your small life can be a hallway. I hate hallways. The road. The road in Fall seems best suited to my allegorical understanding of this mass of stone and water. “I don’t mind dying…I just don’t want to be there”. That road may lead to more roads. The road. It’s every day, every moment. It’s all things to most people. Most people are dead anyway. That was a pedestrian thing to say, but the truth is seldom sexy. The road. An exercise in ego. By myself, for myself. Public consumption always corrupts. Light a cigarette and influence a generation. The road. We want off, but the way is through. The road. A word with no meaning that defines our existence. The road. Beware, be kind, be drunk, be them, be tired, be love, be hate. The road is love. The road is family. The road is. Sincerely, the path. The road. Let it be unforgiving, realize your story through it. Or don’t. It’s all in syntax. What a farce. If the road ends and you have not loved, void of self, go back. If Enso is the stated goal does that defeat the purpose of attaining? Lose to find…so much for literal applications to acquire a desired end. “That tree is green” vs. “That tree is everything”. There is no end until you believe something. Nothing is something if it requires explanation. The road. Her dreams so vivid they colored her from start to start. How beautiful that must be….would be…was be….syntax again. Laugh out loud if the silence feels glass. The road. That which is can become…there is no end. One foot in front of the other. Beauty and bends have always been married. Pull over when the heart demands. Be still when the road is chaos. Stray, but not too far. Down the hallway to the right.
We dig so deep for so long
Reaching, forging into rock, leaving our mark
Scarring the things that inspire us to live
Tearing down the roof we hope will keep us safe for all the years
How misguided. how low. how tired we must seem to the stars.
How many lives we destroy creating ourselves
Reinvention. re-birth. Lean on the walls for an instant and feel the galaxy tremble
We put our names on all we touch, as if that will help us last beyond a flicker
What is a name? What is it worth except to him to whom it has been given.
Nothing can grow from a jealous heart except hatred and lust.
Those with dying hearts wear it in their eyes. Tumors of the soul are never hidden
Keep your distance Cleo. Keep your worlds Ulysses. Save your breath Petra.
All of the kings horses and all the kings men.
But we never re-build. Life is a continuous tearing down.
Oh that we would but silence our minds. That our hearts would search and know.
The rocks do indeed sing. They sing for glories we know nothing of.
The din of our enlightened state has left our hearts yearning, bankrupt. “Give all you have to the poor and follow me…” Modern Man is but a well dressed beast.
She was sunlight. She was rain. She was all that made bones feel alive. She was all that beauty meant. Dark worlds could not steal light made from her laughter. To love her would never be enough. Not loving her would be to fight the depths of the sea. Being with her was to be with a hurricane. Not being with her…the desert.
She was the sea. The indigo waves molding the rocks, making pathways into every corner of stone hearts. She was the mountains. Explore for a lifetime, but still gasp around every bend. Sheer wonder. Sheer expanse. Vast wilderness.
She knows. She is knowing. She has known. She stands on the edges and brings them closer together. Her fingers create colors in night’s quiet moments. Moons are jealous. The tides yield to her voice. She is wind, she is tempest.
I am lost. I wander her map of skin and bone. Connecting lines, finding another, feeling alive…always alive. Stockholm in Spring. A maze. Her eyes lead on. Pools of green reflection. Question all, answer few. Love to ruin commonplace….
I am lost at sea. I am drunk. I will never be found. I am bound for her darkest clouds. Course set, mind to purpose. I will never be swayed….She is tempest.
Well Wild 