The breeze from the east brings
the sounds and smells of the dairy
and the beginning of Fall.
On our morning walk, Sandy stops
to roll in the dewy grass.
A desert valley is no match for
a Golden Retriever, maybe
color-wise, but not weed-wise.
She bumps into me as we walk
and her coat of stickers
scratches against my leg.
*She’s not what I ever intended
to love.*
My father used to walk alongside
me the same way. Lecturing me as
he walked, he’d lean in, like Sandy,
forcing me to lean away,
or drift off the sidewalk.
I’d drift as far as possible but
could never escape his thorny barbs,
many of which stuck deep,
festering in my soul for decades.
*He’s not what I ever intended
to forgive.*
He’s been gone a few years now
and with the passing of time
I have slowly begun to forgive,
and in the forgiving
I have found healing
nevertheless scars remain,
and when Sandy brushes
against them,
I remember.
Oct 16, 2023
Oct 16, 2023 at 6:38 PM UTC
I've always believed that
something exists beyond the veil.
But the modern age has done its best
to keep us from seeing it.
The world spins and tells us what we want
but the world lies.
The world can never provide
enough
to satiate the soul.
A six-figure income
lies
Your new toothpaste
lies
“I cant wait until Christmas”
lies
That SSRI drug trial
lies
“If only she would love me”
lies
An early retirement
lies
A trending poem
lies
“I can quit whenever I want”
lies
Additional home square footage
lies
That new car smell
lies
Hair plugs
lie
“I’m fine to drive home”
lies
***********
lies
Any kind of cosmetic implant
lies
Anything you wish you could get your ***** little hands on
lies
There is no end to the lies
and lists of
things that will not satisfy
for long
Only the now
is true and
fulfillment will not come
later
It is right now
in this moment
You are alive and
you don’t need to be
You are your own gift
Embrace the now
Breathe
and
Observe
Sep 29, 2023
Sep 29, 2023 at 11:49 PM UTC
Nat writes:
so many eddies colliding on the surface of a mighty river
yes, there is something otherworldly here
yes, even sacred,
in the finest sense of that overburdened word
Ah, what you speak of is
the very eye of God.
I see it in a Kaleidoscope of color
perfectly balanced yet
confusing all the same,
and the beauty of it!
A chaotic comfort like adrenaline.
The simple confidence of the knowing
held together by a single point of reference.
His bright eye the Fulcrum
o_________________________o
^
between:
The Sacred and Profane,
teetering in perfect balance
(For now)
between:
Respiration (The In) and Exhalation (The Out)
He resides in the pause between breaths
between:
Air and Water
(The Earth hovers within)
between:
Eyes Open and Eyes Closed
We live and die within the blink(s)
between:
Connectivity and Breakage
(Our true desires at the watershed of)
between:
Out Loud and Silent
(One without the other drives men mad)
Again Nat writes:
*we exist,
we edit,
our eddies,
our overlapping lives,
in a never ending series
of Venn diagrams
all delicately balanced
at a single point*
So perfectly stated.
The very eye of God.
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=rVKRRzaf21U
Sep 20, 2023
Sep 20, 2023 at 1:56 PM UTC
Stops and starts
tidbits and scribbles
3 years of notes and files
and pain filled ramblings
but nothing cohesive.
Instead, what’s written are
the short circuit musings of a brain
on the mend after 25 years of
miscellaneous addictions.
I gather all the words together
and wonder what to do with them.
I contemplate deletion, but no,
there has got to be something
here that's worthwhile,
something worth saving.
So I pull out all the lines
that somehow feel right,
lines that have potential,
lines that show me how far
I’ve come since getting clean
and I write down the best of them
and then comment on each
from my current perspective.
*I used to chase the dragon
now the dragon chases me
across fields of wet leaves
in the timid December sun.*
(I must have walked a thousand miles while being chased)
*I force feed the feel good
to override the let down.*
(One of the main reasons a user uses)
*There is no willing oneself to wellness,
there are no bootstraps to pull on, and
no self talk to conquer the chemical
malfunction in my head.*
(Without Faith and Hope, I wouldn't have made it)
*It’s a kind of spiritual act,
A mystical replenishing of
all the used-up parts of me.*
(Could have said meditate just as easily)
*I knew it was wrong
but I wanted it easy.*
(Perhaps the most honest thing I have ever written)
*It makes me wonder if
the gaps I have are
there to protect me.
But more so it makes me
fear that hidden moments
shaped the core of me,
and when I don’t like me,
what's missing are the things
that if I knew I could not
survive the knowing of them.*
(I can only assume this made sense at the time)
*I do best when I live in retrospect.
The present is too real.
In the present my demon is here.
In retrospect
I can choose to leave him out.*
(So glad I got past this, and live solely in the now)
*When we exist for only ourselves
the world is not round,
it is flat and we tend to fall off the edges
into pandemonium and unhappiness.*
(Still so very true!)
*In all of my searching I
cannot find a way to love you
like you need to be loved.
In other ways, yes, but
second to what you want.
But even so I want you to know
you are my rock, my harbor,
my safe place, as consistent as
the dawning day, as reliable as
the setting sun, and as beautiful as
the harvest moon.
Without you I am lost.*
(She saved my life and she knows it)
*When I am close to God
I smell lavender.*
(Don’t remember writing this but I like it)
*A common idiom -
don’t put skeletons in your closet;
My father hung bones like he hangs his shirts.*
(Never been a fan of “Do as I say, not as I do")
*I can't let myself
be shamed for that
which I'm already
ashamed of..*
(Be kind to yourself!)
*I'm not afraid IN the dark
I'm afraid OF the dark.*
(The unpredictable loneliness)
*I will never be happy because
there is too much I don’t know.*
(The need to be in control is a death sentence)
*There's an uneasiness with the
easiness of stress-free living.*
(Chaos is a large magnet and I am sheet-metal)
*Sleep never satisfies for long,
like a drug tolerance
its ability to provide escape
loses effectiveness over time.
You'll notice this while dreaming,
your dreams become more vivid
and uncontrolled, a rolling
tide of daytime worries warped
into colors you can't escape.*
(Sleep, by far is the most elusive aspect of healing)
*I am afraid of love
and that's a difficult existence
when your greatest need
is also your greatest fear.*
(Such a horrible paradox to live in)
*Pounding my fists on
the darkened altar in my mind
makes the night much darker.*
(A place I’ve been where you do not want to go)
The gap of these years has now been recorded.
I am free to move on towards what is to come.
Sep 13, 2023
Sep 13, 2023 at 5:08 PM UTC
They are both gone yet my siblings
go on about how they are missed,
exaggerating their legacy
with each passing year.
I try to search my mind for happy memories
but can only conjure the demons they gave me.
How different might I be had
my parents never been tormented.
But perhaps they had no choice,
maybe the swine did not drown
what Christ intended to drown and
instead emerged from the sea of Galilee
and entered soul after soul down through
the ages, passing from one generation to
the next until they met my grandparents,
and then dished a double dose
for mother and father.
Early on my father tried to drown them out,
his favorite method Black Label,
and that’s when the spirits took him;
spirits fueled by spirits.
And what if for me
those years had been kind?
Raised on warmth and tenderness
instead of fear and loneliness?
I only know that the fear held me
back from total stupidity and
served as a great motivator.
A fearless me would have died
a thousand deaths instead of
the 2 or 3 that I endured.
So now I’m in a place where all is well.
I’m on the other side of the ****
But without the **** well,
I just wouldn’t be me.
How true my creator knew me then and
knows me now, weaved all the pieces
of back then into the completion of tomorrow.
He sees my life like a drone sees a vehicle on
a winding road, what’s over the hill and
from where it came all at the same time.
Today I choose to only see what is right before me,
and right now those ancient demons are silent,
softened a bit by mindfulness, therapy, love
and the passing of parents.
In this moment I have no time for
the memory of any of them.
Sep 5, 2023
Sep 5, 2023 at 5:41 PM UTC
A kindergartner in his bed
a man outside his room,
his face against the foggy glass
a stormy night… no moon.
A lightning flash within the dark
the boy sits up and cries,
the hooded man with dripping nose
looks straight into his eyes.
When morning comes his mother’s there
her eyes are mean and wild
“You pee’d your bed, again!” she said,
“you stupid little child!
You’re much too old for rubber pants
but what else can I do?
Now put them on and go to school
I hope they laugh at you!”
Some fifty winters later and
the figure still appears,
where once a hooded human
now a demon in my mirror.
He’s not afraid of being seen,
the man I am now knows
his presence here is absolute,
I live the life I chose.
He comes to see me every day
when noontime hour is near,
a surging angst from deep within
my fifty years of fear.
My closest friend since way back when
my mother said I lied,
I could have said I was afraid
but never even tried.
She wouldn’t have believed me anyway….
I met my demon as a child
at midnight in the rain,
I swear I saw him smile at me
from through the window pane,
with water dripping from his nose
and eyes like burning coal,
a flash of light revealed his greed
and then he took my soul
May 18, 2023
May 18, 2023 at 11:14 AM UTC
Free will has brought us here,
brought me here,
all the result of breathing.
A consequence from arrogance.
A consequence from alcohol (But not me).
A consequence of neglect.
A consequence of the unknown
explosion at any given moment
from my mother when we
were young.
My developed response
a fight or flight my whole life,
the pathway so deep
a bottom doesn't exist.
Like a deep sea diver
the lower I go
the darker it becomes.
Claustrophobia and panic
are almost certain.
Breathing
becomes more difficult
and returning to the surface
takes slow and steady patience.
I've only gone so deep.
How much further I might go I do not know.
I'm terrified to think what might be down there.
The thought of meeting the unknown face to face is
a fight I fight everyday.
They tell me that fighting gives it strength,
it would be better to befriend it.
I try but
its hard to make friends
in the dark.
Feb 15, 2020
Feb 15, 2020 at 5:56 PM UTC
As bright as you are
I could give you the sun
and no one would know that you have it
Feb 14, 2020
Feb 14, 2020 at 9:56 AM UTC
Mother never had a chance with him,
a dry alcoholic, worse than wet.
His mind contrived to twist and convince
and manipulate her into submission
While his unrelenting oppression
resulted in her subsequent depression.
We would see snippets of who she used to be
or who she wanted to be but they were
constantly stomped upon by his pestering.
His ideas became hers,
but never sounded like hers.
In no way am I claiming
she was innocent in all of this.
She lacked the will to
stand up to him... Perhaps conditioned
by their 50 years together, rooted in a time
when women didn't object.
When I think back now
I can only feel sorry for her
even though she was far from a loving
and attentive mother.
She had many demons to fight
and little emotional energy left for children.
Any memory I hold of her,
especially ones of her smiling feel oddly fake.
As a young child I was attuned enough to
recognize her smiles as forced and unconvincing.
And now she is gone
And he sits alone
I do not speak to him very often
Because I have nothing to say.
His influence lingers deep
and I hate that part of me.
He used to call but thankfully no more.
He offers no apology for the way he is,
and I am smart enough to not trust him
with anything concerning the way things were.
I have no desire to encourage more abuse.
I only wish that for my mother’s sake
that he were the one to go first.
Perhaps allowing her a little freedom
from a lifetime of him.
On a recent and rare call he told me
he still speaks to her as if she’s there.
Even in death he will not leave her alone.
Feb 7, 2020
Feb 7, 2020 at 11:55 PM UTC
The end is never the end and steps become stages.
Neuro-transmissions engineered at birth are
erroneous pathways deepened over time.
Retrain the brain they say, neuroplasticity
a new age of hope, but pathways are abyssal
and unscalable, and time is running out..
And what is life's purpose
When your deepest chasm is fear?
Therapy teaches to live in the moment
Experience keeps me seeking atonement
Those places to go to for calming the mind
Are fleeting, elusive and redundantly non effective,
Losing their ability to heal, so few to rely on!
Like a tiny window in a prison cell,
Only a little light is let in but not too often, transient,
Crossing your face for a moment but then gone.
More so a reminder
Of what might have been
Or may never be.
Mountains can't be climbed with moments.
Dreams dissolve quickly upon waking,
The harder you try to hold them
The quicker they are gone.
I wonder if they are real at all.
Small victories in a multi-faceted war
Do not define sobriety.
More demons to conquer
The worst for last perhaps unbeatable.
Jan 31, 2020
Jan 31, 2020 at 10:20 AM UTC