As I climb from base misery
to the mountain tops of self-mastery
I'm reminded that to remove my mask
precedes these odes to flow

I found myself
on the fields of defeat
where the corridors of power
never seem to meet

You see, I lost myself again
in that merciless unwind
which is not a new place for me
and has been working me over time

But I don't mind the mountain tops
it's where I long to go
I don't mind the mountain tops
it's where my stories flow

When I told myself again
that it's time to let it go
gotta just allow for it
for that short pause, for the plateau

Cause I don't mind the mountain tops
it's where I come and go
I don't mind the mountain tops
it's where my stories grow

So I told myself again
it's time to mend and sew
gotta try and re-learn those things
I forgot to know

I don't mind the tops but
it's the valleys where I rest
no, I don't mind the tops
but it's the valleys I like best

We don't mind the mountain tops
cause from there we flow and flow and flow

through my disabilities:
endured an enablist

it was beyond my masculinity
to stop seeking farther approval

sallying forth into contorted
realities ... humbling and bumbling

along predetermined trails
of oblivion

incontextual servitude
is blissful if done right

like lumberjacks
in forests of gumption

while living within
the synchretic monotony

and becoming
architects for disdain

our composite genius suckling
on ingots of caloric magnificence

while forgetting principles:
art science technology

and supplicating on splurges
converted into gurgles and burps

within this abbreviated lifeway
i strut toward my masculinity

but found my rhythm
on the vector of eternal boyhood

while forgetting to ask:
why does our Mother suffer so?

Sipping cerveza with
Beautiful bocce ***** bowling
Through Pacific sands
While the sun tracks into the horizon

I realized today
Why I've been
So ******* angry

It took me quite
Some time to get here
Cause I was attempting to
Think it through

The thinking through process
Was exhausting
Every time I thought I was there
I realized I had barely begun

My reward for attempting the journey
Was a growing anger
Alive and festering
And a feeling in my heart

Rather than focus on rationality
I began to sit with the feeling
While trying not to take it out
On myself or
Lashing out on those around me
(especially my loved ones)

Trying was trying and
Sometimes it worked
And sometimes did not

While I sat in between
Waiting and wondering if
Maybe the answers could be
Found elsewhere.
The more I felt into this
In those quiet, reflective spaces
The more I was able to
Reorganize my emotions
Which brought me to the conclusion
That my source of anger
Was a feeling.

It did not take me long
Sitting within this
When I began to shift
Into the realization that
This needed to be
Unpacked:

My emotions of anger
Were rooted in the feelings of hurt

I tried to point my finger at a more direct
Source of this pain and
Many people came up
But I could see they were coming from
A place of hurt too
And our hurts were perpetrated on each
Other in a cyclic fashion

Now I was on a roll,
Unpacking the hurt continued to flow
Now I understood that
My feeling and the hurt
Are the product of cycles
That do not serve me

I was starting to embody
This understanding:

These cycles are rooted in
Unhealthy dynamics
Installed and instilled
Within a hierarchy
Infused and embedded
Within the power structures
Of today but
Moreso the power structures of yesterday

This was my call to action

Flowing further
Led me to the knowing that
To assist with restructuring
These dynamics might be the greatest gift
I could give to those I love

Within this knowing, I decided
An army of one
Would not do

So I got to work on building an army of two

Here it is ...
My reconciliation statement begins with these questions:
Am I the locus of the problem?
Am I xenophobic?
A supremacist, perhaps?
Certainly neither of those but ...
Am I complicit?
What did I elicit?

Here I am all wrapped up in my trauma bonds
hoping someone will help me to see.
Maybe I am attracted to wounding.
What do I have to do? How am I gonna be?

My pain receptor's cry out:
Feed me!!!
And this is where my attachments are
inflicted
and this is when my attachments are
conflicted

But now I've found some nurturing
and something new is blooming
triggered: guard up
un-triggered: guard down

I am working through my oppressors and
reacquainting myself with allies

It was an invisible war
and it is no more because
my ceremony of innocence
is drowned.

in this state ...
we follow the drum
dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum

it's a baseline from the numinous
rooted in the luminous
dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum

it's consciousness expanding
and selfishness unbounding
dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum

this thrombosis is cyclical
inspired spirals are psychical
dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum