Shattered Thoughts

There’s a lot to be said about that which is never spoken.

Those moments when souls have been stripped bare and dragged across acres of salt and all you can do is lower your head, take what could be considered too much of a sip of the drink and then just stare off into the distance.

And yet there’s that power, that magnitude of those unique people you meet along the way… those seemingly innocuous souls who turn out to be the prophet or the saint or the tempter or the torture that you never saw coming.

You are stuck in that introspective moment, locked in pain. You are forced into a straightjacket of the mind and then without cause or reason you notice the look;

not the look of judgement or resentment or trepidation.

It’s the look of recognition. It’s the face you see in the mirror because only that face could understand what you’ve been through.

It’s the look of sympathetic resonance.

It’s the look of the harmony between balance and chaos that shapes the cosmos.

It’s the look of someone who sees just how very broken you are, and yet does not retreat from those vicious shards.

For the most part life is but an unending procession of monotony and repetition and monotony and repetition and monotony and ….

…fuck. See? See how easy it is?

And that’s just it. When did we become conditioned to believe that any of this nonsense would be easy? Life as a definition is the struggle for preservation......

*********************************************************************************

“Should we talk about this?”

It’s a question that goes unasked but lingers like a severed limb. She averts her eyes, a skill she knows so well and knows that breaks me into a thousand shards.

“Hey,” someone else interjects, saving us from the harsh reality. “Who needs another beer?”

“I do,” she says eagerly. Her jade eyes light up as she smiles; she is the beacon that fills a room whether she means to or not......

*********************************************************************************

And just like that,

I am back into a place I never 

thought I’d see again.

This weird amalgam of love and hatred and fear and power and passion and utter, crippling confusion.

How do people deal with this?

At the cost of sounding like a cynic…

is this pain worth it?

I genuinely oscillate between belief and regret.

This is just too much to comprehend: the mind seems like its about to rupture in absolute joy and complete mystery and I no longer have a heading in this fucked up maelstrom called life.

I’m haunted by the past…. scars that I keep wearing and fail at covering up.

And those marks had held me back for so long,

Have ruined so much

that I don’t know how to operate anymore. 

An Overdue Reunion

It’s one of those strange nights.

Nights where you can’t remember when today started, yesterday began, and tomorrow ends.

Early morning stumble to the train, 

the sky grey as the deepest Nantucket fog;

departure after the sun has crept back beneath the view. Luminous dusk lingering overhead.

You walk back into the new true that you call your life;

those now familiar quizzical steps that lead into safety.

You inherently dodge a bo staff flying past your head as your gypsy tribe calls you

“welcome and come home!”

The surreal bliss of sliding down into your childhood chair as laughter and banter and genuine love permeates presently throughout the premises….

I stare into the orbs. It’s a paralytic, this metaphysical prison capturing at a moment’s notice.

The ethanol dances calypso circles around my cerebellum;

the witch doctor’s haze creeps across my gaze.

“Hello old friend.”

I watch as my own reflection speaks to me. He grins and squints and cocks his head the same way I do, but yet we do not look alike.

“ It’s so nice to see you again.”

He looks so different. His face tired, his hair grey, his features softened; and yet, his eyes speak of miles.

“You look so surprised, like you never expected this?”

I try to muster words, to round up the stampede of thoughts cascading through my brainpan.

“What happened, jackass? Your words turn to piss?”

Of fucking course: my introspective self started delving into limerick. What an asshole.

“Yeah, sucks… doesn’t it?” He says this with the inflection of a question when it’s clearly a statement. “Realizing you’re not what you thought you’d be? Tough shit: what are you going to do about it?”

I can only stare back…shamed at my own reflection. I feel as if I have failed myself.

And then I see another reflection. And another. And another. 

A galactic arm of reflections.

I see myself as a young malcontent, expecting nothing but the worst of the world;

I see myself as a child, laughing with my dog Jazzmine as waves splashed against the shore;

I see myself eating dinner in a five-star restaurant in New Orleans with my best friend…simply because she had plans fall through and needed an adventure;

I see what I envisioned;

I see what I could be, for better or worse;

I see who I am, right now.

I rinse my hands and wash my face three times;

buddham saranam gocchami

dharmam saranam gocchami

sangham saranam gocchami.

I keep my eyes closed as I feel the last remnants of water trickle off my face; they catch on my chin with my mask gone.

“It’s alright,” he whispers. I open my eyes once more and look back at me.

“There’s still time. To find your purpose again.”

I take a slow breath through my nose. 

“What,” I say, “no more rhymes?” I grin.

“Asshole.”

“Thanks for the reunion.”

Lost in the Now; Lost Together

xWhen did my words become so difficult to find?

     It's hard to dust off the cobwebs, especially when you've made a subconscious effort to repress them. Wait, no: repress isn't the right word. 

           Bury.

           I have buried my words.

     What was once my greatest escape and means of understanding the world around me have become a liability. They are the warm droplets of blood escaping from a wound that I've tried to bind and hide and pretend doesn't exist anymore. They're scars only I can see that remind me of who I was, who I thought I was going to be, and what I became. But more than that, they're the opening in the armor that prevents me from blocking out the New Orleans style marching band of cacophony and discord that perpetually resonates in my head. 

     The good,

            the bad,

                 the beautiful and tragically ugly and utterly 

                                   inexplicable.

And yet as I keep these impulses at the tips of my fingers in chains, locked away in the dark... I can feel my grip on my own identity sliding away. How do you go so long with a singular purpose only to cast it aside like a soiled towel when you need it more than ever to find that balancing point on the see-saw called life?

     The answer is fuck you. You can't.

***

 It's been such a long time since I've sat down at this rickety little desk to put thoughts to page that my fingers feel arthritic, my mind feels atrophied. This was like breathing for so long and now I feel like I don't know how to take a breath.

    The only way to remember gravity is to just lean out against the cliff and

                           let...

       

                                    ....go.

How fickle this game of 'Twister' is.

     Change comes like the sea and yet things never really change under these quiet skies.

I lay in this room, 

           a place still unknown and yet I'm surrounded by pictures and faces and paintings that remind me of a place I knew as safe and mine. 

     I find myself in terra infirma, terra incognito.

                This tabula rasa carries a lot of chalk lines from the previous lives I've lived:

                        scratch marks of nails dragged in pain still linger just under the surface.

How do you lose track of people you're constantly around?

       A fever dream, a beautiful collaboration of a seven part symphony.

               Beautifully broken bodhisattvas brought together out of bond and purpose and collective bliss:

            a tribe of fallen stars, fitting together so perfectly as broken shards of glass to form something

                       beautiful.

...

...

...

...

      And somehow that mosaic seems so distant now.

               Where is that collective that was once stronger than steel?

    How is it that we're always together yet...

                            ...it feels like another life since we were together?

It's a strange sensation...

      ...being estranged in your camp.

***

Recompense isn't easily found for me.

     But once again I'm taught a truth from life:

                  

                    Words to page.

Solace isn't found. 

     It's accepted.

Maniacal Sightseeing

Bam, bam, bash...
who took out the trash;
someone owes someone cash.

     Crazy digital age we live in,
transactions are a rampant nonchalant necessity.

Want to sleep.
Want to sleep.
Need to sleep.

Day off tomorrow, need to do the adult stuff.
Trying to act responsible.

Little gremlin hosting a wine and cheese party in the brainpan:
     fire and battery acid pumping through the veins,
           Sleep is for the weak,
              peace is for the meek.


Jesus Christ doing crunches in Crenshaw,
how did it get this late?


Wasn't I just cooking dinner?
People needed to eat,
     lean into that paternal role in this crazy little collective you call
         home.


Easy peasy, making stir fry:
     meme-like journey to a grocery store leads to an epidemic of
fiscal irresponsibility and and untapped level
of hilarity.
Apparently someone got hard nipples thinking about ravioli....

The fuck?

Is that the sun or my neighbor's bathroom light?
I think I need to buy real shades;
     apparently a pirate flag and a Mongolian flag don't block enough light...\\


.....DA BEARS! DA BEARS DA BEARS DA BEARS!


...how did I end up outside again? And when did it start raining?
             Still...it feels a lot nicer than the hot box of a house called home.
My foot taps along to Led Zeppelin as I hear cries from inside about
     banana bread...


...fuck.
I am alone in a house of people.

     ....I was riding on a wave when I thought this dream came true...

I am tired.
I have been tired for days.
I lay down to sleep, switch off the lamp aside my bed, close my eyes and try and drift off to the sounds of familiar shows on Netflix...

...Holy fuckmonkey,
    I'm at my desk,
        I'm the very keyboard that is typing this absurd words,
and I've no clue how.

That table at IKEA today was nice, I should have bought it...
      FUCK YOU, YOU LUNATIC! STOP SPENDING MONEY!
     OH FUCK OFF...STOP BEING PARANOID. MONEY COMES, MONEY GOES.
     Excuse me, folks... but perhaps we should discuss a bit of balance in...\

<COLLECTIVE NARRATIVE>
       GET FUCKED STRANGER!!!!!


"Hey can you hang my curtains tonight," my beloved maenad asked. Was that tonight?
    What year is it?

BEARS BEARS BEARS!

"Food is up," I groan, knowing it's not good enough to impress only me.
Is this now?



...


"Hey man, are you ok?" I stare into the darkness at the silhouette of my brother.
     Fuck, what did I do this time?
          Wait.... what day is it??

"I'm worried about you."
"I'm good, buddy." Images of self-immolation flash through my mind, countered by images of me as an octogenarian bartender in the Bahamas.
      "You know you can always...



"...go back to bartending."
    The fuck?
        Wasn't this conversation a week ago?
                   Two weeks ago?
"I just miss talking with you."


"...So doesn't the Pope," I mutter.
            ...."Excuse me sir?"

I look around and I'm at self-checkout at CVS on Harvard Avenue.




...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...

This looks like absurdity. This is what life feels like in MANIA.

     HAPPY MONDAY.


; )

Brink

Where do I begin? 

Where do I begin…

and where do I 

end?

I have found myself asking this question a lot lately. In the vast expanse of chaos and chorus and reason and rhyme I have been feeling like a half-deflated mylar balloon adrift. A feckless and reckless child throwing sand into the wind. And in that act of innocent insolence I lost my footing and fell off the seesaw.

What are the words that I can use to unravel this mountain of broken bricks and shattered bits that I’ve managed to bury myself under and ask you to excavate? I muse the idea of the Houdini act; flash of light and smoke and poof, I am but a specter… a mental splinter that lingers but is impossible to extract.

Exhaustion. 

My mouth runs dry, my already fevered cheeks flush with shame and humiliation and hope. I’m trying to sleep but I know I can’t before these words are down and inscribed upon this digital tablet from Sinai.

…

…

…

My courage eludes me.

I can face down the darkest corners of my mind and bear pain that breaks me and yet this is more than I can carry.

Fuck it. My six stars never cease to guide me.

Mine has been a lonely road.

For nearly a decade I have been alone.

I’ve had a few lighthouse souls that have stuck with me through the years,

but thanks to the growing complexities of life…

we’ve moved apart.

They’ve gotten married, they’ve had kids, they’ve become distant pleasantries.

Yet all the while I’ve managed to stay running in the same circle

at the bottom of the same dark hole I’ve called home for too long.

I’d grown close to members of this lunatic-saint family. But I always stayed at arms length to protect the cracked bits of porcelain I have left.

And then this celestial alignment occurred

and these six stars erupted into 

clear focus.

These exceptionally unique and dynamic and beautiful and bruised warrior-poets came 

cascading into my life and utterly

changed

my universe.

Such magnificent presence broke through the

veneer and alabaster 

that I’d shaped around myself and the part that I’d

buried,

my capacity to love and

let love in was cast into the sunlight.

It was like trying to wash your face with a tsunami:

I was and still am overwhelmed.

I am so rusty and unfamiliar with that part of myself that I let my demented mind start a 

Spy versus Spy series of misadventures

with my emotions.

I couldn’t fathom what I was experiencing without trying to simplify it like fitting the correct shapes into boxes.

And this dynamic… it is something in all of my years and all of my travels… something I have never experienced.

I love you, because of you. I love them all, because of them: the poet, the stoic; the young sun and the nurturing moon; the bonfire and the beacon.

I have lived a life with what feels like naught but pain and sadness and carrying those scars alone. But I am not alone anymore,

and I am terrified of losing that.

I live in the eye of the hurricane. I see the beauty of the sky and the storm, and yet at times I am overtaken by it. But I cannot always outrun the maelstrom. 

I have lived in dread of that.

As long as I can remember.

Yet when I am with you, I fear not: you are the guiding lights in these unknown waters.

You remind me of who I am.

You remind me of who I want to be.

I will always give everything I have for you,

because you have given me more than you know. 

I am beyond the point of sorry being enough.

We have given ourselves to each other.

You have given me…

…hope.

To quote:

“The Bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but respect and joy in each others’ life.”

-R. Bach

A Brave New World...

It's hard to understand these thoughts.

It's late. No later than I'm used to but I'm tired and I feel battered and broken. I've been living in a tempest after so long in tranquility that I'm grasping at ferns in a field that's been burned down and demolished for another fucking 'soon-to-be-failed' manufacturing plant.

Fuck.

How does one begin to process distilled madness and chaos and bliss and family and love and things you can't begin to even fathom? How do you make sense of the center of a tornado?

Moses doing crunches. I need another drink.

It's that weird hour where even the most night-hawkish friends I know are bunkering down, bracing for another day of reality. And yet here I am, stuck in a cognitive loop and trying to drown it all out with stimulants and vodka and the most beautifully depressive music a lonesome soul can find. I look around my apartment; this cabin in the urban woods that once was my retreat from the cold realities of the day has been injected with life, with lives. A diaspora of wanderlust souls have invaded my isolation and I am so much more the better for it.

But of course there's that little asshole sitting on my shoulder, whispering in my ear nothing but negativity and sorrow and self-pity. He's been stapled there for what feels like an eternity. He tries to tell me that I've made a grave mistake; that I'm not worth the love around me. He sabotages me at every single step along the way, trying to convince me that I'm too fucked in the head and too broken in the heart to be apart from my isolation; too fucked up to be a part of something more. He looks a lot like me.

And then I look at the slumbering faces around me... I think of those luminous torches that are not in the room but whose fire burns so fucking bright I'm scared I'll burn myself. I look back at the pictures we've taken over the last two yea...wait, fuck, no... the last two weeks. How does such a short period of time have the gravitas of several lifetimes?

I'm fidgeting. The anxiety monster is close.

I close my eyes and lean into the slipstream daydream of my memories with these bodhisattvas. Two miraculous spirits learning to play and sing and harmonize together; family I never thought I'd have bandied together over Amuuricah's birthday which included really lousy tequila shots; three people lazing on a couch talking shit while watching 'Stranger Things' ; the simple joy of a friend you love beyond reason giving you a hug as you pass by in the shift change.

I am terrified. I am not prone to change. I am hurt, and I have lived that way for so long that I didn't think I'd remember what it felt like to feel anything different. Yet despite all that, here I stand on the edge of a precipice... ready to take one of the greatest risks of my life because I have power and force and creativity and love backing me. These beautifully flawed and wonderfully scattered and immeasurably unconquerable saints saved me when I didn't even know I needed to be saved.

There is no force in this world stronger than love. And there is no love stronger than that which we choose.

Dream

And just like that…. she comes back to break me. She, the  loving phantom from my dreams, from my nightmares… the spectra of my joy and my torment. Oh those soft spots in their porcelain soul; how can you protect against such innocent cruelty?

“Do you remember…”

the pause is noxious…

“…that…”

and she goes silent. 

My breathe stops: I know this moment. This is a moment I constantly dread; it's a moment that is just inevitable.