I had my coming-of-age in the not so sexless ruins of a revolution.
Category: Plought
Most excited I ever was
Like those times of my childhood when I lived with my grandparents in the summer and I had nothing to do but lay out in the sun on their back porch, dreaming easily and worrying only about what I was going to do with my friends that night—that’s the most excited I ever was.
Big decisions
I remember right after we graduated we were most of us on the fence with our decisions. We could have done one thing just as easily as several others. Some decided right away and started. Others took a couple months. But almost everyone I know decided on something eventually.
And now, almost a couple years later, a lot of us are doing those things we decided on, and they’ve now taken up big parts of our lives. Seeing as most of us are in our early twenties, then what we’ve done since graduation is a tenth of each of us.
It makes me think of how important those decisions are. In the moment they seem just like waking up and having breakfast. What’s subtle is they change the course of everything for really no good reason at all in the sense that we could have picked something else and it would have been just the same now.
Bright light
I turn off the bright light and turn on a dimmer one. In a few minutes I say to myself, “Gosh darn, I thought I turned that bright light off.” Then I look up to see the lights and it’s the dimmer one that’s on. I say to myself, “Oh wow, how my eyes have adjusted.”
Four of us feeling good
Through a tunnel passing through the low yellow lights crossing the bridge smoking in the car speakers drumming early in the afternoon four of us talking and feeling good.
My Mother Was An Artist
My mother was an artist. In her hometown she got sick and went to see the medicine woman in the fields. The medicine woman was there and my mother’s mother was still alive and she knelt there in the fields among rows of other people that had passed on. They all knelt down in the dirt on a sunny day. Here they came to life again, in the medicine woman’s field.
My mom was sick. You only went to see the medicine woman when you were already sick. If you were healthy, the dead would make you sick anyway. When you were sick already, it didn’t matter. My mother held me in her arms. I was sick too. I was a baby too young to remember this story.
My mother knelt in the field next to her mother, my grandma. My grandma knelt there in the dirt looking very somber and worn down by being in the sun all day. My grandma held a baby boy also. He was my mother’s baby brother, John. He would have been my uncle had he not died before he was one year old.
My mother knelt next to my grandmother and communicated via the medicine woman. My grandma whispered to the medicine woman and the medicine woman turned and translated to my mother. My grandmother, via the medicine woman, told my mother that she was proud of her. She also said, holding dead baby John in her arms, that I looked to be very healthy. I was a little younger than one year old at the time, just like dead baby John.
The medicine woman said that it was time for us to go. This did not phase my grandmother. She knew that it was as things must be. She maintained her same somber disposition. Her golden cheeks eternally tanned by the sun of the dead. She whispered one last thing to the medicine woman and the medicine woman turned to my mother and told her, “She wants you to know that she loves you.” My mother cried a single tear in the soil of the dead. Then the medicine woman said that we really must go.
She led us away from my mother and through rows of other dead people kneeling in the soil. We came out of the rows and reached a road and departed from the dead. In the real world, the fields of the dead were a gift shop filled with pictures. There were many aisles of framed pictures of deceased loved ones. They hung on the artificial walls like books sorted in the shelves at a library.
The medicine woman told my mother, earlier this morning I sold the first one of your mother’s pictures. She only has four photos left now and then she will move on from the fields and rejoin the sun.
Thank you, my mom said to the medicine woman, putting her hand on the woman’s shoulder. I will come back and see her again once more before she passes on. I will have one more question to ask her. Well, why did you not ask her today? asked the medicine woman. Because I don’t know the question yet, replied my mom.
The medicine woman smiled and said that she understood. With me as a baby still in her arms my mother said goodbye to the medicine woman and left the fields of the dead, or in reality, a picture gift shop where souls waited in purgatory to pass on into the sun.
The Little Ant: A Short Story
The little ant couldn’t remember how he had gotten lost. He was in the middle of an expanse with no sense of direction. The ground under his feet was hard. He had nothing with him other than the grain of rice that he held in his mandibles. He had no thoughts in his head other than delivering the grain of rice to the colony. It was so peculiar, the little ant thought to himself, that he could not remember anything from before. He could not remember the queen, not specifically at least. He could not remember what she looked like, only that he did in fact have a queen. He could not remember his brothers or the tunnels inside the ant hill, only that he did in fact have a home and the colony was waiting for him and depending on him to deliver the grain of rice.
The first few seconds, which are whole days in ant time, the ant spent in despair. “How did this happen to me?” he asked himself over and over again. He felt disconnected, alone, and purposeless. The colony is the reason to live for an ant. Without his queen and worker brothers, the ant felt no energy for life. But he still had the grain of rice in his mandibles. He had a duty to the colony, he remembered. Thus concluded his period of despair and reintroduced to the little ant the resolve that is customary for his kind.
He was hungry. He thought of taking a little bite from the grain of rice. No he could not, he told himself. It was for the colony. The colony needed it more than he did.
The little ant looked around to see in what direction he might start to search for the colony. He was in a foreign place, or at least a place that he did not remember. In all directions, it was only flat and there was nothing noticeable to be seen. The little ant realized there was nothing that would tell him which direction to choose. He picked up the grain of rice with his mandibles and started off in the direction that he was already facing.
It was many minutes that the little ant marched straight in the same direction. He was careful to pay attention to the movements of his legs. Because he had no information neither from his sight nor from the smell of the colony, he had to be careful this his steps on the left and right sides were equal, to guarantee that he moved forward in the same straight line. He was also counting the number of steps that he took to know exactly how far he had traveled.
If he did not find anything in this direction, he would turn around and walk back in the exact same direction from where he came. He reasoned to himself that he could not be far from the colony. He did not want to risk marching off in the wrong direction, away from the colony. He planned to set out on equidistant paths from the center where he started. This would allow him to cover the most ground, closest to where he began.
There were occasionally long ropes scattered on the hard floor. The little ant dared not leave his track to examine them until he came across one of the ropes in his path. It was not a rope, but a strand of hair. It was much longer than ant hair. He wondered to what kind of beast such a long hair could belong. He wondered if such a beast had anything to do with his separation from the colony. The little ant felt a sudden fear for the colony. He hoped they were safe from this great beast. He stepped over the hair and shuddered as he did. He continued on the same path, keeping his left and right steps equal.
The little ant had no way of keeping track of time other than the steps he had counted. He had taken twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred-and-twenty-eight steps. He had not stopped other than to briefly examine the strand of hair from the great beast. The little ant wondered to himself how many steps he would take before he would turn around and retrace his steps backwards. He cursed his predicament for he had no sense of how large was this vast expanse that he was in. If he only knew, then he could determine how far he needed to travel in each direction. The best he could do was to guess.
The ant was now more hungry than he was before. Time would become a factor unless he found something else to eat. He would dare not take even the smallest bite from the grain of rice. The rice was for the colony. There was no purpose in him even returning to the colony if he did not bring the grain of rice.
When the little ant reached fifty-thousand steps, he turned around. He was very careful when he turned. He composed himself and stood straight as an arrow in the direction that he was facing. He took note of the position of his body. He would do it in two movements, he decided. The first would be a quarter-turn to his right. He would then make a second quarter-turn to complete a one-hundred-and-eighty degree-turn so that he would be facing, hopefully, in the exact direction from which he came. He cursed himself for not marking the spot from which he had originally departed. He could have carved a large “X” in the floor with his mandible. Now he had no way of knowing if the measurements and count for his steps were accurate. He would have to trust them. He had no choice.
The ant started his fifty-thousand-step journey. He crossed the large strand of hair at roughly the same step, which was a good sign that he was on the right track. When the ant counted his fifty-thousandth step, he started the count over. He was now tracing new steps.
When the ant was a third of the way into his journey in the second direction, there was all of a sudden a great shadow cast over the whole of the expanse for as far as the little ant could see in any direction. Instinctually, the little ant dropped the grain of rice from his mandibles and did his best to crawl atop it and cover it with his body (the grain of rice was several times the size of the little ant). Just as quickly as it had come, the shadow passed and the light from an unknown source returned to the whole landscape. The little ant shuddered. What was that? He wondered to himself. Did it have anything to do with the giant strands of hair that were scattered all around? Did the shadow belong to the great beast?
The little ant stood immobilized for some time. What would he do if confronted with such a large beast? He did not know, he told himself. There was only one thing he could do. He picked up the grain of rice in his mandibles. Before he began again, he realized that he might have lost his direction slightly after having thrown his body on top of the grain of rice and losing his footing as a result. There was nothing he could do about it now. He reset his track as best he could and took a step to continue on.
Nothing occupied the little ant’s mind other than the count of his steps and the soft embrace with which he gripped the grain of rice in between his jaws. He started to feel a kinship with the rice. At first he scolded himself for giving into delirium. He longed for the companionship of his brother ants and his queen. It was not for an ant to be alone. Still, even as he admonished himself, he could not help but feel connected to the grain of rice. At times, he swore that he could feel a soft rhythm like a heartbeat against his mandibles. It was only the vibrations from his steps, he told himself. Grains of rice did not have heartbeats.
He had now gone more than forty-thousand steps in this second direction. He was twice as hungry as before. He started to feel a weakness in his legs and mandibles but dared not pay attention to this. He was still likely very far from the colony. He did not even know anything about where he was. The most frightening thought crept into his mind, the colony might be no more.
After all, he did not remember anything. How could he be so sure that he even had a colony? The little ant shook his head, trying to shake out these thoughts. He admonished himself two-fold: for having thoughts in the first place, and for not keeping his head straight and rigid in the interest of staying on the path.
There was no productive outcome of thoughts like these, he reminded himself. The only productive thoughts led to action in the service of the colony. Any thoughts that led to either inaction or action not in service of the colony were thoughts not to be had. The little ant marched on, recommitted to his steps and maintaining the posture of his mandibles, even though the joints of his jaw had started to ache severely—the ant didn’t think of this.
At precisely forty-four-thousand-five-hundred-and-eighty-six steps, there was another shadow. This shadow was different, however. It was static and non-moving, not like the beast’s. The little ant set down the grain of rice carefully to get a better look. In the distance there was a vague color not like the hazy blur of nothingness. It was a wall! He could not see the ceiling but he knew it was a wall. The little ant did not know how he knew this, or from where he had learned the concept of a “room.” But he knew it, as sure as he believed that he had come from a colony.
The wood inside of a wall would provide an ideal home for a colony. The little ant contained his excitement and reminded himself to focus on only two things: counting his steps and holding the grain of rice in his mandibles.
The little ant passed fifty-thousand steps in this second direction. According to the plan, he should have turned around. However, finding the wall justified an update to the plan—the little ant reasoned with himself.
At sixty-three-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty-nine steps, the little ant stopped with the grain of rice against the wooden, painted-white floorboard of the wall. The little ant didn’t move. He surveyed to the left and the right, along the floorboard. To the right, the floorboard appeared to go on out of sight, undisturbed. To the left, there was a part where the head of a nail protruded from the floorboard and it looked as if the board was pulled slightly away from the wall. Maybe there was an opening where he could get in, the little ant said to himself.
The risk of exploring the possible opening was that the little ant would have to abandon the rigid structure of his exploration. He could not, however, pass up this opportunity to explore the opening. He resolved to measure, as best he could, the angle at which he now faced the floorboard. The little ant determined it was about sixty-degrees with respect to the floorboard to his right, and therefore one-hundred-and-twenty degrees with respect to the floorboard to his left.
It was becoming difficult for the little ant to remember all these numbers. He made it easier for himself by dispensing with all the other superfluous pieces of information in his mind which were not essential to bringing the grain of rice to the colony. He systematically disposed of any emotions and any ideas about where he had come from.
Then, returning his mind to the numbers, the little ant realized, if the room was rectangular (he seemed to recall that most rooms were), the line along which the little ant had explored thus far, which ran exactly one-hundred-and-thirteen-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty-nine steps, was diagonal with respect to the walls of the room. This being the case, the little ant imagined he might amend his plan and, instead of returning back to the center where he would continue in a third direction, he would search along this floorboard until he found a corner of the room. The chances were greater, he reasoned, that he would find a corner if he followed the board to the left. If he found a corner, he could make estimates for the size and the shape of the room, given the measurements he already had. This was assuming, of course, that he would not find the colony behind the opening between the floorboard and the wall.
All this, the little ant thought of, while still standing motionless facing the floorboard with the grain of rice pinched gently in between his mandibles, careful not to adjust even slightly his exact position until he was sure that he had all the measurements he needed. He was sure now. He turned to his left and started to move carefully along the floorboard towards the protruding nail which the little ant assumed would mark an opening to the interior of the wall.
At only two-hundred-and-forty-seven steps from where he had first faced the floorboard, the little ant came to the protruding nail. There was indeed a small opening between the board and the wall where the paint was chipped away. It was roughly the width of three little ants. Peering into the opening, it was like a long dark cave. The little ant was afraid. He dispensed with this emotion as superfluous. The colony might be at the end of this cave, the little ant told himself. He adjusted the grain of rice in between his mandibles, made his way into the cave, and started leftward.
It was dark. There was a thin ray of light that seeped in between the top of the floorboard and the wall. This ray illumined only a small part of the little ant’s path inside the cave. He relied mostly on the sense of the board to his left and the wall to his right, as he occasionally bumped into either side with the grain of rice. The little ant was very sorry to the grain of rice each time that this happened. He tried with all his strength and concentration to avoid these bumps but he had become very hungry and weak as a result. He occasionally faltered to either side as his legs had begun to fail.
After seventy-four steps from the opening of the floorboard, faintly at first, then louder; the little ant could hear a bustle up ahead. At first he was excited. It’s the colony! He told himself. The end of his journey is near! The little ant marched forward with a newfound exuberance and strength. He craned his neck and hoisted the grain of rice high. He thought of seeing the queen and his brothers.
Then the little ant’s exuberant march slowed. He listened closer to the bustle and his stomach turned. He listened to the heavy steps and their rhythm. They were not like ant steps. They were heavy and spaced out. This was something bigger than an ant.
The little ant stopped and stared as deep into the cave as he could. Whatever it was was coming closer, straight towards the little ant, and fast. The little ant took a step backwards, and then another. By the time the hairy fangs became visible in the thin ray of light, the little ant was moving backwards as fast as his legs would carry him. He could have moved faster if he dropped the grain of rice, but he dared not. The spider was very fast and closing the distance between them.
In his mind the little ant displaced his fear and counted his steps backward. Twenty-five … fifteen … five … Just as the ant whipped his backside to the left where he knew he would find the opening, the spider lunged forward and snapped his fangs after the little ant.
Outside the cave, bathed in light, the little ant laid on his back inviting in air through his spiracles. For a brief moment the ant allowed horror at the spider to take the place of his concern for the grain of rice. When he realized the grain was no longer clenched between his mandibles, the ant jumped to his feet only to find that there was something very wrong with one of his front legs. As he tried to support himself, he fell forward onto his right mandible. The spider had severed his right front leg at the joint. A clear liquid seeped out from where the little ant’s leg was detached.
This injury, however, was secondary to his concern for the grain of rice. He looked around, ignoring the pain in his leg. Luckily, the grain was beyond the opening in the floorboard. The little ant limped over and picked up the grain with his mandibles.
The little ant felt his pain only insofar as he needed it to assess his ability to carry on. Combined with his hunger, the loss of blood was now weakening the little ant significantly. He would carry on. There was nothing else to do. With the grain of rice securely in his jaws, the little ant limped along the floorboard in the leftward direction (relative to where he had first faced the board). The little ant shuddered to think that the spider was just on the other side of the board. He could not get out, the little ant told himself. The opening was too small. Besides, he could not think of that. He had to continue on in this direction no matter what.
The little ant carried on. He continued to count his steps. It helped him to ignore the pain in his leg. This would be the last segment of his journey, the little ant knew. He would not be able to return to the center and continue his systematic exploration.
The little ant thought of nothing. He did not even process the information that came in through his eyes. He did not smell. He did not think of anything other than the count of his steps, and increasing the number by moving forward. All the while, clear liquid seeped from his leg.
He carried on like this, until step thirty-thousand-seven-hundred-and thirty-eight since the opening in the floorboard, the little ant ran headlong into another wall. He had reached the corner! Though the little ant could not spare any energy for excitement.
He craned his neck upward and started to climb. Normally, the little ant could have climbed the wall vertically. Impaired as he was without the full function of his right front leg, he was forced to crawl up the corner with his right shoulder relying on one of the walls for support. With his neck craned back as far as possible, he could just barely keep the grain of rice in his mandibles from scraping against the wall. Like this, the little ant climbed.
At several points, he stopped to rest, focusing all his strength on the grip of his claws that held him to the wall. He feared if he did not do this occasionally, he would fall backwards. How high the little ant climbed did not matter, he had no room left in his mind for the fear of his own death. He could not even remember the numbers anymore, not the angles nor the steps he had taken. That was all beside the point now.
The stops for rest grew more frequent until with every step the little ant feared he might let go. Then the wall that made up the left half of the corner, gave way to a countertop. The little ant scrambled onto this flat surface, thankful for the ground to rest his tired legs and the space to adjust his craned neck. The ant rested, with the grain of rice clenched in his mandibles. He would die with the grain of rice in his jaws, he told himself. He felt that death was near.
The little ant got up to his feet. The clear liquid had stopped seeping from his front leg. The little ant wondered if he had any blood left. He wondered if he had already died and he was now just hallucinating. The little ant looked around at what lay on the countertop. He did not recognize anything. The shampoo bottles and electric razors made no sense to him. They were all merely objects that were not his colony, and therefore meaningless.
It was towards the end for the ant. He knew this. His eyes were starting to dim. For the first time in his long journey, the little ant started to lose hope. He knew he only had the energy for a short distance. He crawled towards the row of hair product cans. He stumbled and fell every two or three steps. He made his way behind the cans and laid down on his back. How long he spent like this he did not know. There was almost no light left in the world.
The little ant had been unconscious for some time when he woke with a start. There was another ant leaning over him. The little ant thought that he was seeing himself. It was his spirit, the little ant told himself. His spirit spoke to him. It said, “Well done, brother.” The spirit ant touched his mandibles to the little ant’s. The little ant felt the mandibles. This was not a spirit ant, the little ant realized.
He heard other voices. He turned his head slowly with what little strength he had left. There were a dozen or so ants. The little ant breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned his head back. They were talking about a great beast. Many ants were lost. These were among the few survivors.
With what little strength he had, the little ant opened his eyes. There was another ant leaning over him, assessing him, clicking his mandibles in thought. He watched this ant look away at the others and shake his head. This ant too touched his mandibles to the little ant’s.
The brother ant came back; he seemed to be the leader of the survivors. “I brought the grain of rice,” the little ant said to him, “for the colony.” He took a shallow breath with great effort
The brother ant looked at the little ant, confused. “What do you mean?” asked the brother ant.
“The grain of rice,” whispered the little ant. “I brought it … food … for the colony.”
The brother ant laughed. “That is not a grain of rice, brother! That is an egg. And not just any egg, brother. It is a queen egg.”
The little ant was overcome with warm rapture. He asked himself, how had he not known? But then again, how could he have? He had never before seen a queen egg.
While the little ant was thinking to himself and remembering the encounter with the spider and the climb up the cliff face and how he could have lost the queen egg. He silently thanked the almighty for granting him the strength to deliver the queen egg back to the colony.
The brother ant continued, “We lost our queen in the battle with the great beast. Without her, we were all prepared to die soon. Without a reason to live, we had thought of throwing ourselves from the cliff here. You have delivered life and purpose to us, brother. We will rebuild a new colony for the new queen.”
The rest of the ants gathered around the little ant. An ant much larger and stronger than the little ant now carried the queen egg in his mandibles. The rest of the ants clicked their mandibles in honor of the little ant. “Sleep now, brother. You have done your duty to the colony.” The little ant relaxed his mandibles and leaned his head back and went to sleep.
Glue
I go to this other world, I’m addicted to it. So that the real journey and true test of my life is making the journey back. The other world is toxic in the most sweet way. It is entropy and chaos. It is also creativity and love. I know it will kill me someday. The length of my lifetime will be determined by how many return journeys I can make.
When I return back to reality, the real reality that I have learned to stop calling “real,” or at least not any more “real” than my beloved other world. But this reality, of names and concepts, is what sustains my physical body. The principal commodity in this reality is a very certain kind of glue that keeps all my molecules together and maintains the cohesion of my sense of self. I huff on this glue, walking in straight lines on the sidewalk, learning and obeying the laws of nature, being careful and avoiding danger, eating and sleeping enough. I huff and huff until I’m strong and together enough to travel. At which point I step off the sidewalk and the earth tips upside down so I fall through gravity into outer space.
Out here, in my beloved other world, which I should stop calling “other” if I have stopped calling reality “real,” a new creative force pulls me in all directions. It is only the glue that keeps me together. I revel in being stretched, and right before my molecules are spread over the entire universe, right before I achieve omnipresence and thus make permanently impossible the return journey to the reality of sidewalks and safety. That is when, with all my strength, I pull myself together and return.
My father built this house
I was making breakfast in the morning. A long-haired man put his hand harshly on my shoulder. I turned around and grabbed his wrist. I said to him, “My father built this house.”
He said to me, “My Native American ancestors nourished the tree and stone this house is built with.”
I was taken aback, not expecting this. I said, “Well, I guess we’re even then.”
Master
I focused on my breathing. I became impatient and asked my Master, “Is it time to turn my mind to my problems?”
Master said, “No, focus on your breathing.”
“I am ready,” I said.
“Why do you think so?” Master asked.
I thought to myself. I considered my problems, but I had no solutions. “I don’t know,” I admitted.
“You are not ready. You are impatient,” Master said. “You cannot solve your problems with the same mind you had before, one which could not solve your problems. Focus on your breathing.”
Play your role
You have to pick a part. Imagine a play. Now imagine a character without lines or stage cues. What would she do? She wouldn’t know what to say or where to stand. And the audience would get upset. They would say, who is this fool on stage? Gone with them! And on with the play! If everyone else is going to play their role, and we’ve agreed to be organized, we must play our roles too.
All the lives in one city at one time
Imagine all the different lives in just one city. I stand on my balcony at nine o’clock at night and look towards downtown. The dressed-up and cute, young couple having a date night at a nice French restaurant. The crowd at a concert jumping up and down for the headlining act. Another couple, they decided to stay in their apartment and make love. A homeless man inside his tent in a back alley digging for the last crumbs in an empty chip bag. A lonely elderly woman watching television and dreading meeting her friends for tea in the morning. A family finishing up dinner and cleaning the dishes. In the next hour, some people will die, and others will be born. All these different lives, at the same time, all in one city.
The little ant
The little ant couldn’t remember how he had gotten lost. He was in the middle of an expanse with no sense of direction. The ground under his feet was hard. He had nothing with him other than the grain of rice on his back. He had no thoughts in his head other than delivering the grain of rice to the colony. It was so peculiar, the little ant thought to himself, that he could not remember anything from before. He could not remember the queen, not specifically at least. He could not remember what she looked like, only that he did in fact have a queen. He could not remember his brothers or the tunnels inside the ant hill, only that he did in fact have a home and the colony was waiting for him and depending on him to deliver the grain of rice.
Mrs. Miller
I was always coming up the elevator when Mrs. Miller was coming down. My day was coming to an end and hers was just beginning. Sometimes when I’d be leaving for work in the morning I’d see her coming back. Just before the sunrise. She’d stay out all night and dance and party with whoever would pay her bar tab. So it was only some mornings that I saw her coming home and I’d smile at her and she’d smile back.
Ping pong dream
In a dream, I played ping pong against a formidable opponent. I had played against this opponent many times before in practice and we were a good match. This game was for competition in an arena in front of many people.
When I stepped into the arena, I noticed immediately that one thing was different: the table was slanted at a forty-five degree angle. I played from the side of the table that was on higher ground. It was my serve to begin. I lost four of the first five points. Then it was my opponent’s serve. I lost the next two points. I threw up my hands in disgust. I shouted to the crowd. They were all children, sitting cross-legged and watching curiously like they were in school.
I shouted, “Why can I not beat this opponent? Who I have beaten before. Did he know ahead of time that the table would be slanted? And practiced beforehand.”
“No!” all the students said in unison.
“Because he is a more experienced player than me?” I shouted again.
“No!” all the students said in unison again.
“Why then?” I shouted back.
Then from the crowd, appeared an old sage, and he said to me, “It is because you are not a good leader.”
I was confused and silent.
“You must care for the bunny, before you get the bunny,” said the old sage [this is the only part of the dream I cannot remember word-for-word, it was something about a bunny, something that surprised me].
I had a feeling of deja-vu, like I had heard that before.
“What text does that come from?” I asked the children.
They all thought about it. One boy raised his hand and answered, “The Dhammapada.”
Weekends
The workweek became like a fast before each weekend binge. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I went to the gym. Tuesdays and Thursdays I ran. I ate healthy, mostly fruits and vegetables, oats for breakfast, fish for protein, and no red meats.
I meditated in the mornings and said prayers of gratitude at night. I breathed through my nose and slept on my back. In the office, I sat at my desk looking at my computer screen, thinking of the weekend. I wrote notes to myself as I pretended to work.
I didn’t think about Hannah anymore. I considered maybe I had only wanted her out of boredom in the office. Now with my new life, her and everyone else in the office seemed inconsequential. I thought of quitting, of course. But I realized I needed it. I needed the structure and the time to decompress.
The weekends bursted at the seams. We lived until we almost lost control. Monday morning was when I pieced it all together. I could lose myself completely on the weekends, like an astronaut in outer space. As long as I had my tether and oxygen line connecting me back to the space station. I could float off without worry and explore because I knew I could return to the sober, structured and healthy week.
Space that time couldn’t contain
We tried to break each moment. We tried to do so much in space that time couldn’t contain it. Just as we were about to have it full, the next moment would begin and all the air would let out and escape into the previous moment that we had almost already forgotten. So we set about like Sisyphus, filling up the next moment, and the next, until sleep.
Life is a game
You got yourself born into a game. Just follow the rules and relax. You aren’t the game master.
Still there remains an inner void
Like someone said, “Every generation thinks they invented sex.” And every other great nation might very well have felt the same way, at least the upper classes. But they eventually realized, as we are now, that our external circumstances are arbitrary and still there remains an inner void. Which is when we feel the darkness and the dread, without even our earthly needs and struggle for survival to distract us, we start to think about philosophy. New needs arise. With power over our mortality, we begin to think, and discover too late that thinking is the worst thing to do. I believe we will endure a great intellectual depression, like diving deep in the ocean without a headlamp. When all this time we’ve been in a small boat on the surface. And at first the deep dark ocean will terrify us, until we reach the ocean floor and turn on a light, that was within ourselves the whole time, to illuminate everything.
The Chameleon
The Chameleon was born in India. His father was a tradesman and his mother was a servant. He had one brother who was a troubled child and went to jail at age fourteen for murder. The Chameleon became a Buddhist monk. He achieved nirvana at age sixteen, on the same day that his younger brother committed murder. Some people in the village said that the soul of his brother’s victim inhabited his body after he reached nirvana. It is possible that many souls entered the Chameleon’s body that day.
It was expected that when the Chameleon came down from the mountains, his nirvana would mark a point of departure from the world. This has always been the case for Enlightened ones before. For the Chameleon, however, his nirvana marked a point of deeper entry into the world. He became curious about all the lives ever lived. He spoke with the old wise men about it. They were deeply unsettled.
In a discussion with one old wise man in particular, the old sage said that he believed the Chameleon had not completed the nirvana, but had stopped just before, right when he experienced the potential power of the Enlightened one, and then stopped himself just short of the permanent break with his worldly senses. The Chameleon was power-hungry—the old sage did not say this, but he believed it and kept it quietly to himself.
The Chameleon decided he would set out to travel the world, unknown to all those around him. He would take on different disguises, some said he even changed his physical appearance. And he changed his mannerisms and emotions and mind in order to become as many people as he possibly could, assuming their identities completely.
The center point of the wheel where the spokes of all other identities connect. At one point on the outer rim, the Chameleon only knew himself. He could see the points to his left and right, but he could not understand them. And the points on the other side of the wheel, he could not even see. When he experienced nirvana, he entered into the center of the wheel, from here he could become anyone, moving freely from the center to points on the outer rim, where the One true identity experiences time and space in different individuated bodily forms in the physical world.
Destination: Spain
I left San Francisco when I was doing just fine in the ways of money and moving up in the world and all the other things you would expect of a working young yuppie in America. But it was time that I make some progress of my own in the ways that my books told me were classically important, rather than just what was going on at the time and what everyone else was doing. So I set out for Spain.
Dream of the Deep
I had a dream that it was monday morning and I was riding passenger in my mom’s white suburban and all the kids were in the backseats. it was winter.
I was sitting in the passenger seat and thinking of a wild party that I’d been to that weekend. This was an example of a dream that spanned multiple days and nights and I could remember. As I was sitting there in my own world of thought and not paying attention, my mom put the car in drive and instead of putting her arm on the back of my seat to turn around and reverse the car out of my grandparents’ long blacktop driveway, she pulled forward and left onto the snow-covered lawn.
I asked her, casually, “What are you doing?” She responded, casually, “Getting the snow off the tires.” Now, this doesn’t make any sense. At the time, it made perfect sense. I only replied, “Be careful not to pull too far forward.”
We started into the grass, slow at first. But my grandparents’ lawn was sloped, and we picked up speed. I sat up in my seat and looked through the windshield. We were sliding forward. My mom no longer had control of the car. I started to become slightly worried. I thought we might crash into the thin wall of trees ahead. And we did. But this didn’t stop the car. And that was when I saw the icy frozen pond. And we were still picking up speed. And before I could think of anything else—to jump out, or save my siblings. We slid with such speed into the pond and then it was all so sudden and the icy water was over us with immense pressure and I looked upward out of my window to the icy blue above, unable to open the door from the pressure as we went deep deep deep.
Saturday
It got very quiet last Saturday night. I realized I didn’t have much to do. It was nice outside at four o’clock in the afternoon so I went out on my balcony and laid there for about a half hour. Then I came inside and read a chapter on the couch. Then I laid in bed and watched some videos about fighting and getting in shape. Then it was time to take a shower and get ready for the night. But I realize now that instead of thinking about what I really should have been doing all afternoon, I let my mind just barely avoid it by finding the next lazy thing.
Balcony
I lay out on my balcony, perfectly fine and alone, minding my own business. A pretty girl steps out onto the balcony across from mine and robs me of my peace. I can’t just lay here anymore. Now I’m thinking of her and how to get her attention. I imagine telling her my room number and her coming over and getting into bed with me. I can’t think of anything else. I have to go back inside.
Chocolates
I sat on the couch and held my drink with one hand and sketched with the other. She laid on the bed with her head hanging over the side and her hair almost touching the floor. The shades were open but the sun had almost entirely gone down behind the downtown skyline. Music played. It was barely lighted in the room. We were high from the chocolates we ate an hour before.
Fool’s game
I am an ultimate nihilist about anything social when I realize that none of it is necessarily true; for example, I could write a great novel, but if it is not popular, it will not be read, let alone sell, and will be forgotten. Or anything that is human is merely so because humans are part of nature and nature is the way it is regardless if there is any reason or truth to it.
We act according to ourselves but we can’t answer thoroughly the question of what we are, and even less thoroughly the question of why we are, so that when a man is ever asked, “Why did you do that?” He can merely say that it seemed to be the thing to do, given what seems to be, but he cannot make any logical statements about whether his action was right or truthful—and that, makes me a nihilist.
For what are we acting? Except for a blind trust that what seems to be, according to which we act, is somehow intelligently designed. In most ways, this is the only bet we have. Like we are sat down at the gambling table with a stack of chips and the chips are no good for playing anywhere else; not to mention, we don’t know of any other tables. So we sit and gamble our best until our chips run out or we have all the chips at the table; the game ends either way. And if we happen to end with all the chips, we have only a fool’s hope that having all the chips was the way to win, when having no chips at all may have just as well been the object of the game.
So I toss my chips for amusement and watch them bounce and dance off the table and try to make pleasant conversation with my table mates in the meantime, maybe even have a cigarette and give a kiss to the woman that plays to my left.
The game seems to have a design—rules, players, a dealer, and an objective. But if I don’t know what the chips spend for, I’m just as interested in the leather and felt of the table, the dress of my table mates, and other things that seem to interest me for no reason other than they do. And if not for these amusements I might get bored with no option for another table or different game; only the option of no game at all, or to get up from my chair and walk over in the direction of the dark and out of the light from the one light bulb that hangs above the table, connected to a power source above that I cannot see.
Sonoma
On a wooded deck by the pool, I hold a glass of chilled rosé and Uri rolls a spliff. I stand up and take my glass to walk around the pool and step off the deck down onto the grass that has overgrown the vineyard.
The grapes were infected by a germ the past year, but it is the middle of March in Sonoma and the other vineyards too are barren at this time of year, leaving behind short tree trunks with their top branches sawed off at the bases where they curl around the wires and would otherwise grow upward and bear grapes, but instead are cut short and look like gnarled menorahs—treacherous, if not for the beauty that surrounded the off-season trees on all sides. Nothing but shades of green on all sides, freckled with all colors of various flowers. The rows of another vineyard drawn into the hillside across the gravel road by which we had arrived.
My eyes taking in all this, with my fingers holding onto the same wires which the grape tree fingers would hold in season and had already held in seasons before. I thought to myself, ah, what a life of a grape tree in Sonoma.
And I kept holding onto the wire and looking upon the hillside across the road until some time had passed and I feared my toes might take root and my hairs grow into vines along the wires so I turned to step back onto the deck and resume conversation with Uri.
He had finished with the spliff. He handed it to me already burning. I pressed it in between my lips and inhaled deeply, looking back at where I stood in the vineyard. I held the smoke in my chest and wanted to choke; I was not usually keen to add tobacco into my joints, precisely to avoid the burn that I now felt in my lungs. But Uri preferred them this way and I liked Uri more than I didn’t like tobacco. I pursed my lips around the spliff and inhaled once more, then handed it back to Uri and exhaled deeply into the day and the hillside and closing my eyes to memorize it.
Antelope Island
On Antelope Island, we park the car on the side of the road, get out, and run the plains like natives.
An island of plains, surrounded on all sides by water, and the water, surrounded by mountains. In the center of the island, the plains fold up into the hills, and the hills into snow-capped peaks.
At the foot of the peaks begins a much more vertical climb. Slipping on piles of broken and jagged black rocks, some of which get displaced and tumble down, and enlist some others in their fall.
At some parts, we must really hug tight to the mountain face, and dig our toes into the dirt and snow, and balance with our hands.
At the jagged top, we set into meditation to claim the peace we came for. I am first to settle in, laying on my back and starting to breathe. Brother stays standing for a little while longer to take in the glassy water and snowy mountains around us. Then, he too, lays down to settle in.
On our own in the beginning. I meditate on the scenery, opening my eyes to see the blue and cool landscape, then closing them to remember it.
Brother meditates on something else, until I start to make my breathing louder and vibrate in my deeper throat. Brother joins. We are not exactly in tandem; his breaths are longer than mine. We add to the volume, especially when our vibrations overlap.
We grow louder and louder and start to sings in a low and deep mountain tone. Brother instructs me to bring the white energy down through myself and into the earth. When we open our eyes, it has begun to snow.
Squaa
Foreign to the rest of the world, was our whole manner of living—reading, writing, consuming, creating, thinking, talking, training, exercising, sitting in meditation, learning new skills, cooking meals, learning new languages.
We all were fierce competitive scholars and athletes for no reason other than we enjoyed it and it made our lives better and reached our relationships to higher levels. We woke up every morning going after all of it in a different way, without being confined to the downtrodden channels.
We had each already before pursued this manner of living alone. The relationships, however, are essential. You can not maximize a man’s potential without involving his social persuasion.
A result of our having higher desires, but also higher abilities to satisfy them. A positive feedback loop, where our desires motivate forming new abilities, which in turn allow us to satisfy higher desires, and so on.
My name is
My name is. I walk through this field. It is dusk, and I will walk until I can’t, touching cat tails with my palms and then lay down to sleep.
It’s been three years since I left. I barely remember why anymore. But so much has happened since then that it doesn’t really matter.
Love
I could’ve loved anyone to that night and that music.
Jelly mold
I consider the emotions of mold in a jar of jelly. At first non-existent, there is just jelly in the jar, and the jar in the fridge. Then born, the mold, crying into a cold world. Its young years are slow and painful but joyful just to be alive. Struggling, to grow in less than ideal conditions.
Then, a miracle happens: the jelly jar is taken out of the fridge and thrown away in the trash can. Misery for the jelly but, ah, what bliss for the mold! A whole new world like heaven with all the ease of growth in the warmer trash can. And in the landfill, the jar broken, the mold breaks free to spread and grow and lives happily ever after.
Italy
To get into a situation like in Southern Italy on an eternally sunny day so that you could just read and write and play and listen to music in the most lazy yet intellectual mood.
Salsa
Ae salsa danced in the club at two in the morning. I wasn’t any good but drank enough so that at least the confidence to move made it alright. A nice latino gentleman showed me the cadence for my steps, stepping to one side and putting one foot behind the other and then doing the same to the other side all while moving my hips much more than I was used to from any other style of dance—not to say that my experience was extensive.
Day
Hiked in Pacifica yesterday then went to a super nice french bistro and had lamb then went to a latin club and salsa danced at 2am and now sitting on my rooftop reading and meditating and tanning.
Pacifica
I wake up and text Alex to see where we’re going. He texts back, “Pacifica.” I dress and pack a bag. We drive along the pacific coast highway. I play music on Alex’s stereo. The blues in the sky are beautiful.
I catch again the sense of moving forward without any effort and enjoying the passing scenery. The ocean and a concept of never-endingness to the right and mountains standing in wait to the left. Making progress toward an unattainable (and thankfully so) point in the distance where the road hugs into a singularity with the horizon.
During the climb we talk. Mostly I look at my feet and focus on my breathing. At the top, I hallucinate. The ocean and sky blues melt together. Sitting, holding my knees, with my eyes closed. My meditation is easier than usual—not for being at the top of the mountain but for having climbed it. My body is exhausted and so is happy not to be noticed by my mind which focuses instead on the blood orange backs of my eyelids.
The hike down is shorter, as usual. We drive the same beautiful highway route back home.
Blake and Ish
Ish was always singing, most of the time with her headphones in her ears, singing along to whatever music she was listening to. For most people this is impossible because they need to hear their own voice to regulate their own pitch.
But Ish explained it to me once—like a painter who only needs to look at the blank canvas once and the palette of colors in his hand once, and then can close his eyes and paint the whole painting, his hand so trained in muscle memory and exactitude moving back and forth between palette and canvas, so that at the end he opens his eyes for only the second time and sees the whole masterpiece—so too with Ish and her singing with her headphones in her ears.
She didn’t need to hear her own voice; she only needed to hear the pitch and rhythm, and then she could keep up recreating it only using her feelings of the vibrations inside her head and chest. And the whole time looking like a dancer, swaying back and forth so that her long black dreads were reaching down to her waist and swinging slowly side to side.
When they first met, Blake couldn’t stand Ish’s singing. When Em introduced Ish to the group, they sat in the coffee shop and Blake, as usual, set his current volumes of interest on the table and read a few pages and then picked up his pen to write and then read some more and picked up his pen again, and he usually went on like this all morning until they left the coffee shop for lunch.
But with Ish there on this particular day when she started to sing Blake looked up from his work and just stared at her for some time with his brow furrowed but Ish couldn’t notice because she had her eyes closed with her headphones in her ears and was just swinging her long black braided hair side to side.
Blake looked back down to his work and tried to keep on reading and writing but he couldn’t and you could tell because he pushed his chair back from the desk and stood up and walked over to where Ish was standing, swaying and signing.
He tapped her on the arm and said directly, “Could you please stop?”
Ish looked at Em, her being the one that had invited Ish along. Em smiled nodded back in Ish’s direction as if giving her the approval for whatever Ish would say or do anyway.
Ish looked back at Blake and took one earphone out of her left ear and said innocently, “Stop what?” And she swayed a little bit as she said it so that her hair swung from one side of her waist to the other.
“Stop singing please. I can’t concentrate on my work with you singing like that.”
“Oh, my apologies, yes of course I can stop. I didn’t know it was distracting you.”
Blake showed her a smile and turned to go back to his desk but before he could turn all the way around Ish said, “But only if you stop scratching with your pen and turning those pages. It throws off my rhythm.”
Blake was taken aback. Em was smiling noticeably in the corner, pretending to listen to what Oliver was saying to her but really she was just watching Blake and Ish.
“Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t stop reading and writing.”
“Well, why not?” Ish asked resuming her innocent tone.
“Because that’s what I do; I read and write,” Blake responded defiantly.
“Of course. Then I’m sure you can understand that singing is what I do,” Ish said this a little more directly and stern without so much innocence.
Blake was silent and just looked at her, not just frustrated as before; still frustrated, but now with respect. He turned and went back to his desk and picked up his pen. Ish put her earphone back in her left ear and kept on singing. Em watched as Blake’s pen paused for a second as Ish started singing again, but then Blake went on writing and Ish went on singing, and they both went on for the rest of the morning. And right before they left for lunch Em could have sworn she saw Blake’s foot tapping along to Ish’s singing.
Drishti
After a high Thursday night and early Friday morning, I am up and euphoric. Not worried about anything, lazy and just kind of floating. Not taking control of anything because what is coming to me is great.
Then after lunch in the early afternoon, I feel a dip lower—and here is where I realize the difference between what I used to do and what I want to do moving forward. I used to think that my emotions were necessarily sinusoidal. But I believe now that is a fixed mindset and not necessarily a fact of life.
Because the greatness comes from all different directions. I dip lower now sitting in my office chair after last night with Lily. But I needn’t live only in that linear. I am surrounded with friends and my body is healthy and ready for exercise and there are books and music for me to lean into and adventure as soon as I take the first step and beauty if I’ll only see it and all this is always around me.
There is also always meditation for me to return home to my Self and, what’s more, subtle, is that the dip is not necessarily a dip in any particular direction with an associated value judgment; in other words, the dip is not necessarily “bad,” if I just watch it and look at the dip on the bridge of its nose and in between its eyes and meet it with empathy.
The dip might be otherwise understood as an opportunity to take in more; whereas, when I am focused on something on the up and up, something “good,” whether it be love, beauty, art, pleasure, or anything else that occupies the whole of my conditioned dualistic attention, I am consumed by it fully. The dip is an opportunity to refocus, to have another “good” fill my attention. Yet this is still of the natural, conditioned, dualist world. On the spiritual level, the same question remains: How can I fill up with all of it always? How can I, figuratively, stay up in tree pose, focusing on my drishti, being One with all of it.
Blueberry
She hands me a small chocolate-covered blueberry. I eat it. It tastes more like my Grandma’s sofa than a blueberry. I like the taste though. I walk and wonder about these artists. How they always seemed to have a group of friends around them that influenced their work. How sometimes, a work I look at and say anybody could have created this, and other times I look at a work and say only this one individual in all of human history could have created this.
She is extremely perceptive. We each are timid about saying that a work is too minimal or, god forbid, that it is not “good.” For example, there is one work of art that was just blank—three canvases on the wall, all of them just blank. She says maybe this is just an exhibit that hasn’t been set up yet, or the artist hasn’t been here to create it yet. But then we read the little placard on the wall and it says something like “blank painting” for the title. It explains the artist wanted to show a work of art that displayed all the “opportunity” of blankness.
The exhibit is closing so we go down the elevator and before leaving find one last work of art—a giant rusted steel maze with walls at least fifty feet tall and slanted sideways. We start to walk through and soon don’t know where in the maze we are, but continue to walk along the same path assuming it must lead to the end. I feel safe with two walls on either side of me and no option other than the path in front of me and her in the path in front of me so I’m walking after her. Finally we emerge from the steel maze and I ask her, “Are you hungry?”
We walk, arm in arm, it’s a little cold outside. We walk into the restaurant. We ask the hostess for a table for two. The hostess tells us the wait will be 15 minutes. She says she’s going to use the bathroom. I sit down in a chair to wait for her. I wait for a few minutes and really start to feel the blueberry then.
City
To be in a modern American city, once it’s really gotten hold of you, is like being at the center of a wheel with all the spokes bringing the rest of the world directly to you. The loves, music, arts, money; late nights in the underground speakeasy, early mornings running on the coast from pier to pier. It’s all there to fill you up; you just have to get out, and open up to it. Then it will carry you along.
Crooked Jaw
Most of the time I am changing. This way, in a professional setting, wearing a suit, shaking hands, and smiling. That way, writing on Saturday morning, frowning, one hand of fingers in my hair, forehead in my palm, and the other hand holding a cup of coffee, haggard, bags under my eyes, trying to get it out of my mind and onto the page. This way, for my girlfriend. That way, for my mother.
Except for my crooked jaw, which stays the same always. Because the doctor told me they’d have to basically saw off my teeth from the whole top half of my face, sawing right under my nose straight back to my ears, and then move my whole jaw two inches forward and drill it back into my face with screws that will be permanent and set off the metal detectors at the airport. And so I said, no that’s okay. My crooked jaw can stay the same.
Gun
It was dark in the alley, he had the gun low pointed at my chest. He wasn’t even holding it right, kind of side ways and scared. I put both hands over his, holding the gun and raised the barrel and pressed it to my forehead.
Click.
Click. Click. Click.
He pulled the trigger once, to my surprise. I didn’t think he would. Then he pulled it three more times. Thank god I pressed the safety button when I put my hands on his.
Neo-religion
This spiritual revolution has already happened in some sense—it is the religious revolution that began with caveman animal spirit drawings, mythology and monotheistic Judeo-Christian religions. The religious revolution demonstrates the great extents to which humans will strive in the physical world for spiritual utility. Only this revolution was based on faith and ended with the beginning of reason. The new spiritual revolution will be based on reason and science, at least to its bounds; bounds, for which reason and science will themselves argue.
Spiritual singularity
This certain point in history, when we realized our scientific success was linked to an increase in our quality of life, and so we were ordered biologically to pursue scientific success that satisfied our animal selves. There is another certain point I expect in the future when our spiritual success will be linked to an increase in our quality of life—then will begin the spiritual revolution. However, the question remains: wether our quality of life will continue to be based in our animal selves, or if it will rise up into a higher spiritual tier of needs at the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy—such a tier is likely to be up and outside our physical world and bodies.
Spiritual revolution
In the same way that man has made great scientific strides in the past few centuries to understand the order and cause and effect of the physical world, I can imagine another period of great spiritual strides in the next few centuries to understand the order and cause and effect of the spiritual world. I only wonder wether order and cause and effect are the correct nouns to describe the functioning of the spiritual world, or if there are other nouns I don’t know yet—being a product of the scientific revolution, myself.
Needing nothing
I wake up with my best friend and make breakfast. We party all day in the forest. In the morning it is clear and sunny and at night it is dark and foggy. We eat. We are tired. On our way home, I think I am needing nothing. When my best friend leaves I set on the edge of my bed and wonder what to do. I am tired but not sleepy. I look at some things. I read a little. I live a whole lifetime in a day. Accidentally, I fall asleep. I wake new and with refreshed needs. I get out of bed curious about my new life and the change of scenery.
Run
He ran all over the city to find it, then couldn’t run fast enough home once he had gotten it. The kind of thing he had been running after all over the world for some time. In his head he couldn’t quite tell if it was the right one, but he wouldn’t know for sure until he got it down on paper.
He was running with Peter and he said to him, “Pete, I need you to remember a sentence.”
“O-kay.” Peter said with a breath in between.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Amid uncertainty … “
Pete repeated it back to him.
“That’s right.”
“I like it.”
Max liked it too. It sounded good out loud.
“Amid uncertainty, rather than say I am nothing, I would like to say that I am everything. but perhaps that is just the God in me.”
Max ran until he couldn’t, and then he ran more. He had to get back to his desk to write down that sentence. He wasn’t sure if it was quite right. But then again he wasn’t even sure if it was the sort of thing that could be right, or if it even was the type of thing that could be said. Or, if it was the type of thing that someone just holds within them, that drives them forward. It could fill up the world, refusing ephemeral words, but embracing with all joy the cycle of life that never ends.
A dream about escaping
And then all of a sudden it became an urgent situation and my brother and I climbed the stairs to higher and higher floors to get away from a man who was trying to kill us until this man fell into a classroom of glass and when I went down to finish him off I saw his spine was severed at the neck and this is how I knew it was a recurring dream because there was a perfume vial capping the top of his exposed spine and I remembered and that’s when my brother and I crept and tiptoed down the building with so many floors where everyone was looking for us but the young kids were on our side so when they saw us creeping down they just shook their heads and smiled and acted like they hadn’t seen us so that the adults wouldn’t find out until we got to the basement and my brother had to pack his stuff to leave and that’s when she found us and really started to yell and we were in trouble and my brother handed me the shotgun and I ran ahead and now here I was sitting in the car with the gun’s neck resting on the open window and the two golden-butted shells behind two silver hammers and my heart beating like a tribal drum wondering what the hell was taking my brother so long.
Double barrel shotgun
When you hold a gun for the first time with the intention to shoot it at someone, and your heart really starts to beat like a big tribal drum in your chest and your ears only work on the inside to reverberate the drum bangs echoing off the insides of your giant hot hollow torso, and I could simultaneously imagine what it would be like to be shot in the stomach and have that giant hot mess spill out; I was holding a double long barrel shotgun cracked in half at its waist looking at the gold pristine butts of two shells peeking out of the inside ends of each barrel. I snapped the gun straight hiding the golden butt shells in front of both silver hammers. I pulled back the hammers and put my finger on the double action trigger and waited for my brother to get out of there.
Jackhammer
The world is wide and bright to me now, a giant industrial jackhammer machine guns down a highway bridge that no longer fits in the city’s plans, and I want to jump or run up some stairs; I’d really like to find a jungle gym.
Secrets
There are things that persons in power could say that would greatly upset everyone else in society.
Like if a critic said that he only writes good reviews for the books and movies that are already popular and he writes bad reviews for the ones he’s already found out that nobody likes anyhow, or if a politician said that the elections are really decided by the people already in power and all the vote tallying is for show, or if a drug company finally released the cure for cancer because it was no longer profitable to keep it a secret, or if a banker said that he really truly believes the financial system is not fair and unequally favors the rich over the poor but he keeps on with his job because he has a wife and family and four homes and two boats and he’s got to keep making just as much money each year to pay all his bills so he pushes out of his mind that he plays a role in the unfair system.
The stability of society depends on persons in power not saying these things. For the most part these seem unlikely to be true, but sometimes I wonder whether it is that they are not true or if the persons in power are just very good at keeping secrets—and even from each other, for surely a banker’s mother has died of cancer and a movie critic has voted in an election.
Mirror mistake
In the gym today my vision panned in the mirror from one dude’s reflection to another dude’s, and I said to myself that first dude looks lazy and the second dude looks like a douche.
Only the second dude was myself and I didn’t recognize myself until after I’d judged myself.
And the surprise at having judged myself made me think: in a more metaphorical sense, I am also that first dude I judged.
Suicide note
She wanted to kill herself. And so we argued—I for life, and her for whatever is after. She killed herself, and left me this note. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself, for not being able to argue better for life.
Onions
They give their own energy to create green sprouts. They are in a bowl, so they shrivel. If they were in the ground, they would pull up energy from the earth and create green sprouts over and over. But they do not have any other energy in the bowl. So they die to create, give of themselves to fill their creation. It is not within us. It comes from the earth, from the universe. We are only a medium, only a prism that just barely changes what passes through us from the world and back to the world—this is art.
Chant
The crowd walked in a tunnel with an echo and at first everyone chanted the same chant that one person had started but then more individuals got creative and started a diversity of chants and the competing songs created a dissonance that killed the chants altogether.
Little mouse steps
When it gets to rain and storm I wonder whether the little mouse, like me, has laid down to breathe in the wet air and meditate on the thunder, or if he continues his work and the rain pitter patter just drowns out his scratching and scurrying. First we are young with first principles that are like little mouse steps.
I wrote unconsciously
I wrote unconsciously—in my dreams, drunk, out of breath, exhausted, in love. And then gathered all the unconscious puzzle pieces and sat down with a coffee to put it all together.
Murderess
She took her lips off mine and pressed me down beneath the surface of the water. I opened my eyes and could still see her muddled figure. Even her washed form was beautiful, still conveyed to me my memories of her. I laid there, holding my breath, peaceful as long as I was still seeing her above the water. I thought she would soon let me up to kiss her again, but she held me pressed there, and I smiled then, been happy to die by her hands looking at her face. I didn’t resist, and opened my mouth to let the water in—then I woke.
Fly
I watched a fly die today. I heard a buzz as it fell from the window to the sill. Lifeless, then all of a sudden all its legs twitching furiously, then lifeless again.
Bumble bees
What if we were like bumble bees? When we killed our stinger fell off and we died ourselves shortly after the crime. We wouldn’t kill until we were ready to die ourselves.
Scrubbed clean
As I traveled and learned and empathized with others completely different from he who was myself, I felt my identity breaking out of the bourgeois and capitalist America in which I was raised. Thinking of all the possibilities of historical worlds and classical ideas and alternative lives other than a high-paying occupation and a happy family.
All the antecedents had been slowly wiggled loose by an amorality and released from my identity, and now there was nothing left.
Finally, I have reached its end, broken it open and everything has rushed out. There is no more. I am scrubbed clean. I am released from myself.
The darkest night
Dark archers defend the dream while light cavalry gallop from underneath the door and through the curtains. From behind eyelash parapets, a sea of arrows blot out the sun. Even a battering ram cannot open the eyelid gates to the outside world. Until the wise light leader calls out, “O’ dark lord, from whence comes the substance of your dreams if not the light?” Alas, the gates open and the real world digests the dream.
Time
I make noises. I live so I write. Each day is a song. It’s tempo and pitch, it can be slowed down and sped up, harmonized or made dissonant. One note, many unison intervals, is not music. Or is it? Is not diversity necessary for music, but too much diversity is too dissonant.
I wake now with the morning birds, only this is a long morning and I have hours to go before I wake, and then I will have miles to go before I sleep, only to again have hours before wake. I do believe I can slow down time. These last few weeks have been very slow. Like if you watch the clock it ticks drudgingly, knowing it is being scrutinized and cannot cut corners.
I watch these days and I feel that I live whole lifetimes before I sleep, and when I watch my breath before I close my eyes, I wonder if I might not be so sad that they not open again, if not for all the joy and wonder I feel when they do, as I am provided with a whole new world and a fresh set of rules to set out to play again, and I am once more an awe and energy child in the morning, a hungry young man before lunch, a man in long and committed love in the afternoon, and elderly in the night, breathing slow, content anytime now to close my eyes and contribute my energy back to the dark, so that it may brighten the light for those who remain behind.
Coming of age in modern America
Coming of age in modern America is the process of whittling down your identity from a coloring book to a business card; the irony is that it’s the business cards that make the coloring books possible. Stability comes from ensuring we do not have too many of either one.
Her reality
It begins with a building up of potential and power: flowing up from the earth through the palms of your feet and from another soul through their eyes and into yours.
Learning to hold potential realities, your mind fills with experience: your whole being swells with the reality that flows in through the senses. It grows within you and wants to get out and return to the rest of reality, but you must hold it, letting it fill and stretch your bounds.
The reality you hold enters its own home; you carry Her like a welcome guest. The energy exists in the physical space, all that remains to be seen is whether it will exist within your gates for just a little while longer before returning to the wider bounds. It grows as reality pours in through your eyes, ears, and skin.
Together with reality, taking mutual pleasure that it is held within you but also at the same time within Her, breaking down economic laws that one good cannot be possessed at once by two. The simultaneous ownership is symbiotic, and the swelling grows within the inner gates while reality, hospitable to Her guest, expands Her widest bounds.
Reality delights in the creative friction where you rub on the edges of the world, pressing against its walls, borders and exactitude to stretch its limits and let it unfold for you. Her walls, laws and rules bend around you.
Drunk with pleasure there is the temptation to overflow before reaching the high spiritual and deep physical. Or there is the temptation to lose focus and slowly shrink. Yet you endure, skeptical of both your limits and reality’s bounds.
Alas, the king is not foolish to keep within his own gates what has grown from resources imported from the outside; he is a vessel for reality, a traveler in the realm of power and creative ecstasy. When he has built up his kingdom to the perceived limits and can endure no longer he allows his gates to open and flood the countryside and even the deepest valleys with a river of wealth.
He releases his power and hugs tightly to his People, for they are now inextricably linked like a family. If he is still young, he will rest to regain his strength, then set out to be filled with reality and swell up again, using the residual power of his last creation—knowledge of principles, strength of body, and awareness of spirituality—to build up his next kingdom even greater than the last, until he is buried beneath his magnum opus.
Moral stone
A moralist and his son walk along the lakefront. The son, Max, holds a rock in one hand and then tosses it and catches it in his other.
The moralist looks down at the rock nervously and says to his son, “Max, you cannot throw that rock.”
At once, as if to silently say, “Well of course I can, just watch me,” Max shifts the rock from his left to his dominant right, skips toward the water and catapults the rock into the center of the lake.
“Maximilian! I just told you that you cannot.”
Max smiling even wider at the game says, “But of course I can, papa. Just look at the ripples in the water from where it splashed. Would you like to see me do it again?”
Realizing he had misspoken, the moralist struggles to explain, ” What I meant to say was that you should not.”
“But what does that mean, papa? That word, should.” Max had been meaning to ask his teachers at school this same question; they too seemed confused about when to say cannot and should not.
The moralist thought for a long time, and then shook his head—it was better not to say what he was thinking. And he only said this to his son, “What I meant, son, is that I would prefer it if you didn’t throw rocks.”
At once the boy smiled and jumped into his dad’s arms, “Well then of course I won’t, papa! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
Crooked Jaw
We stand inside a stump’s stomach and meditate. My color wispy white, like cloud tails that mustache the mountain faces.
Boots on a forward tilt crushing wet redwood. She says, between deep breaths, “I’m not feeling … anything … but my biology.” Woken just an hour ago from our green symbiote moss mattress. We dance across a fallen trunk bridged atop the river.
The forest doesn’t apologize for its fallen trees; nature isn’t orderly. I don’t apologize for my chipped teeth.
Even amid tall trees and wide rivers, I look at my feet. Retreat into myself, a perceiving thing, and a thing to be perceived, without sense of which is which—other than some vague memory of a rational animal that emerged from the woods, until I now re-entered.
In the wooded world, I roll in my present fingers a perfect stone for the game we played on the lakefront yesternoon. Take aim at a tree down the mountainside. And release it. Ahead the group has left me; I run to catch up.
Longer than the zig-zags rise, we come upon two others: one kneeling, holding his face, and the other standing.
I ask the standing what happened; she hands me a stone perfect for the game that we played on the lakefront yesternoon, “This came down through the trees.”
The kneeling looks up; I look back into my own eyes and do my best to smile with my jaw hanging from its hinge on one side, a smooth string of blood streaming through the ghost teeth. I smile back to myself, showing me my own crooked jaw, and hook a finger in my cheek to show the scar between my top and bottom molars.
At once, my companion and I become ourselves.