To get to the point of loving someone
Really loving someone,  with that passion and fire you can barely conceive of,
That burn yourself alive fire
That sacrifice everything for on an altar of loyalty and worship fire
Is so difficult
I never knew
No one really said it to me
I don't know why I thought it would be easy
That it would just come to me
That I'd find the right one
In an instant
That I would just be the same for her,
That I was a man to set the world on fire for
To die for
I was such a child
And now I have sadness
Like a man
For all my mistakes
Learning what love was
What love is.
I hope someday I know how to love someone

I was lying, when I walked up to you
Through the wet spring fowers
In the cold morning while you sat with your sheep
I didn't know I was lying,
I wanted it to be, I wanted my love to be
But I was lying when I walked up to you
And brought my arm over your arm
And your hand in my hand
And our warm bodies enclosed
And I kissed you so softly
Because I wanted to be gentle
But I was lying when I came up to you
I didn't realize
I thought I was trying to make you happy
But I was trying to make myself happy and I was careless with your heart
I'm so sorry,
I know it doesn't matter now
But I am.

Love is brave
Take your armor
That you have wrought
In the depth of your suffering
From the sources of your personal injuries
And cast it aside
Bare your breast
Before the one whose joy you wish ascendant
Watch her in her own fear
Holding the knife itself come forward
And trust
She will hold you with courage to

Am I using up my love
Am I burning through the stock of that ineffable magic
Each time, it happens
I feel like I have less
Like I have lost piece by little piece
The moon and the stars in your eyes
Each time I throw myself into the dark pools of your desires
I come up emptier
As though deep at the bottom
Amongst the smooth stones
Lie pieces of a heart too burdened to rise
Each time I come up
a little more out of breath
Does it come back?
Can I restore that silent joy
Or have I spent it beyond recovery?

To be a people pleaser
Is to be a liar
First to yourself
First you say
Their happiness is my happiness
Then you say
I'm fine, I'm fine with this
And this and this and this
And when they say this
And they look at you
With the eyes of a lover
With deep need and kindness
With the vulnerability you wish was yours
You say that, and this, and that
So they won't be sad, so that they'll smile,
You want so much for them to smile
Because you love them...
Or you want to love them?
Or, you wished you loved them?
Or, you don't want to hurt them
Because
You're a people pleaser
And you imagine
You pretend, you tell yourself
This, this is my person
You want it so much to be true
Until a moment comes
And you look around
And realize
I'm not fine
And you pull
And you pull, till you pull
The rug out from underneath them
And the shelter you built
And the futures you conjured
And the safety you promised
Evaporates and falls apart
Like a flimsy children's umbrella
And the rain like hateful knives comes down
And you get to watch
As the betrayal falls
And you realize you could never be
What they needed
You promised so much
But it was a lie
First to yourself
But oh how they suffered for it

In the silence of the night
In the soft stillness
In the dark eyes of you

I dreamed

I dreamed that love was real
That my love was real
And not a selfish expression of profound need

I dreamed that I gave,
Was able to give you
Everything you wanted, or needed
That I was your needs answered
As it has felt like you are mine

I know that's absurd
I like you
Like I haven't liked someone for a very long time
I know that there are so many limitations to it,
To me
I know I can't give you everything

But God how I wish I could

And in knowing that wish
I can't help but feel
That giving you what I have
Right now to give
For how long it is reasonable to give
With kindness,
And understanding
In the limitations of the self
And patience for the absurdity of the world
Is the best I can do
The only thing I can do
It's as close as I can get
And it's so much less
Than you deserve

Back in the dark
In the past before the printed word
Before ink and feathered pens
Even before the cuneiform on tablets of soft clay
In the dark when monsters hunted us When cold would **** so many
When food was life itself
And starvation was part of life

I heard the howling of the wolves who became dogs

I heard the deep singing, and drums beating through the air under a deep blue sky covered in bright stars so thick it looked like milk being poured by some great giant

I felt the beat as a heart that sang of the need to come together
And in the song of the wolves that became dogs I heard the words that journeyed into the night

Come family, come together, come family
We are more together,
We survive together
We grow great together

Come family come to me
The night is dark
But it is not cold if you are here
It is not lonely

I do not howl into the night
But instead I sing
Come family, come together
We are strong together
Together we are more

I took a multitude of universes from you
An infinite series of possible other yous
Each completing a life different from this one.
I can't give them back
You only ever do just get the one

But I look in the eyes of the old wives
And hidden in their words
Is the mourning for all the lives they couldn't live

And so I know what it means when you chose me.
Every day
I will not waste your life
I want to say
That each day
I will make the multiverse of you jealous that they don't live this exact life
But I know how life is,
So I can't promise a perfect life
I can only promise
That each day I will try

Forgive me when I think of lovers past


My heart is big, like a great house,
Like everyone's heart
The best rooms are yours,
The largest rooms are for you
The brightest, with the most sunlight are the ones where you are
Your voice echoes through them like music and the morning call of songbirds
But like a great house, long in its leaning
There are rooms not often used,
Rooms of memory
With dust and cobwebs, and shadow
That's where she lives,
If I go there and lift a sheet to reminisce over an old picture
Don't imagine I would invite her back to live
Someday those rooms too will be yours,
I am still rebuilding
It takes time to remodel a heart

Here I am in this photograph
Let me exist
For a moment in front of you
Captured
Here I am in this exact moment

Dissolve the pretense of the present
Roll back the subtle layers
That we wrap around ourselves
To protect our fragile selves from the judgment of existence

You watching now do not know
What lengths we went to
What spells we wrought
To justify in our minds
The choices that lead us
To places that didn't yet exist.

Step into my soft worn shoes
Imagine them stiff and new
See me, not aged not tired
See me absurd and unsure
See me
And know time is cruel
And mankind foolish

Forgive me.
For someday
Someone will see your picture
Be kind

light traces the dim back wall
slowly
left to right

my sink drips
and taps

children play in the small courtyard outside my window

for a while im cold
and lay under the blanket,
later im hot
and lay in my underwear

as the light from the window on the back wall dims
i turn a light on
and lay down again,

i don't even have the energy to stare at my phone
the day passes and i have hope
that tomorrow ill get up

A few words from you
are like spring water
glistening in the dry desert sun
promise of relief
memories of cool foggy mountains
and rivers that flow forever

Like a seed buried in the dark earth
cracking its hard shell
seeking to grow
and become something great

My soul hasn't forgotten
My love hasn't died

I know it's not something you want
or are looking for from me
I won't burden you with it

But a few words from you
brings the sun into my day

You owe me nothing
I can take nothing from you that should be mine
You are utterly and completely your own
But like the sun
The ray's of your light
Give light to my life
I have gratitude
But no entitlement
I feel Joy when you shine
But I am not a plant who needs you to survive
I will live regardless
But oh how beautiful the world is when you shine on it

Death is casual
It happens everyday
It happens when you turn your back for a second,
When you aren't even looking

Especially when you aren't looking,
when you're so wrapped up in something
that the rest of the world doesn't matter
when your world is perched on the teetering edge
of a finite solution
smashing yourself against the blunt rock of the world
trying to change something

And sometimes it comes when nothing is going on
when you're sitting on the toilet,
Watching cat videos

And suddenly your reliable heart stops sending the blood where it needs to go

Sometimes death takes you in the morning
waiting at the traffic light
for the little walking man to come on,
And the car that shouldn't be on top of you
suddenly is
and so is death

Death is in the broken flesh of the meat suit
that was you
Death is in the tears, and the choked words
of the people who knew you
Death is also in the shrug of your aquaintances
who hear of you in passing
And wish they felt sad about it

Death is in everything you do
Death is in the seconds
ticking cheerfully along
They aren't sad seconds
It's just time
And death is just death

It happens to everything
To everyone
The greenland shark swims for 400 years
before he meets death
The Galapagos Tortoise can live for up to 170 years
before he stops crawling through the world
The female mayflie lives 5 minutes
Once the larval stage is finished
And the new eggs are laid
And death is put at bay
For the season, and 5 days

Death comes
That's life
Live it
Until then

I liked you
I sometimes still check your Instagram
I almost liked a post

I liked you
I'm lonely
Sitting in this place
With this phone

I don't want to date you again
It was right that we parted ways
I like that we did so with so much respect and kindness.

I don't want to date you
But sometimes I look at your Instagram when I'm lonely
And wish everything was not as it was
So that we could be what we aren't

To the unloved children of the dark streets
I don't hate you
I can't judge you
I walk past your crumpled form
Sandwiched in the crevice with an old sleeping bag
I have only empathy
I can't fix you
I don't even know what needs fixing
Maybe you just need money
Maybe it's deeper

I lack the resources to fix the world
So that you and others aren't sleeping on the street
I'll give you food if I have it
Sunblock in the summer to protect your vulnerable skin
A coat in the winter
I can help protect your physical body
From the assaults of nature

I wish I could soothe your soul
I know in my heart that we aren't that different
But, I try very hard to never be you

I knew a man who was not me
Not the whole specifically
Or not the me that you would see
Who youd call you
If you were sitting next to me

This man I knew
Was an I of mine
I had my mouth
My eyes, my hair
I had my legs and arms
And the body that I liked
But the I, I knew
As I said was not me
This I thought that he was better than the I I am
This I, didn't have the extra 12kg that existed when I wasn't posing in the mirror
This I, I knew only said witty clever things
Never mean, or petty
Nor plain mundane
The I, I knew was faster than, the I I am and stronger to
This I was always perfectly kind and considerate to all of my friends almost all of the time
The I, I knew was wise and kind and smart and worked harder than everyone else at work
And was interesting and handsome
Oh I wish I was the I I sometimes think I am
But there are many I's inside of me
And many eyes are watching me
And I'm only him sporadically
I am only always ever me
But still sometimes
I take myself too seriously

I saw you
Older than you were before
I like your new lines
They speak of strength continued
I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees
Please, continue being strong.

Sometimes I am the teeth
And sometimes I am the tongue
Sometimes I am the earth
And sometimes I am the sun

At times I sit in the dark of the world
And stare at the multitude, burning fires
Wondering after the flame
Other times I become the kindling
And in turns embers and the Ash

One day I saw a bird
And wished I was its wings
Beating the air for purpose

Sometimes I am the water
And sometimes I am the fish in the water
Other times still, I am the emptiness of space
Am I a fish there too?

How sweet the small perfume scent sits
And wafts across the bar
I see your gentle smile and the makeup that you use infrequently
How you must smile
When you put it on
I hope you have a wonderful evening

I want to wrap you in my love
But first I must make it

With the first look in your eyes
As soft pools reflecting the eternal light of an old sun.
You are kind
And I will take your kindness
As a needle and thread
To weave together the pieces of you and I
As stars in the sky
And the dark velvet of joy
That is between us

I will weave it into a warm blanket
That is my affection
To wrap around you

I want to love you intensely
Completely,
Unreservedly and deservedly
I want to love you, because I know you
And not for what I imagine or wish

I want to love you with an intensity that lasts the decades and generations in which we will age and decay
Beyond the thin veil of infatuation
Beyond attraction, beyond convenience
And the mediocrity of compromise and loneliness and fear

I want to love you bravely, fearlessly and wisely

I want to adapt myself to it
Change and alter the pieces of me that are inadequate and
Grow into someone
Who is perfect at loving you

I hope that I am worthy to love you

And I hope that you are worthy of this love

For the love of god,
Look in the corner of the screen
Look in the small dark corner
Look where the camera doesn't care
See the place that's out of focus,

That's where the villain is
For the Love of god,
Look there

To walk along the dark path
So polite in it's garden ordinariness
Is different in the late night
At the hour of the witch
The house windows are black
And the porch lights are off
The sticky pitch eyes of the cold houses watch
And behind the shadow of the empty buildings
Is a sick orange glow of the far away city
The trees that shade and the weeds that seek
Grasp at the edges of the sidewalk and in their shadows could be anything.

I see the hands
As jaws, grasping in the ancient water
Clasping at the skins of other creatures
With desperation and gnawing hunger
I see the claws that are your nails,
Even trimmed they still scratch,

I see your hands
I see the teeth in them
That seek and bite, and swallow
What they catch

I see you,
I know you as the animal that you are
Your smile is full of teeth,
And not all of them crush plants

Out in the cold sun,
In the wet forest morning
I see the teeth of the world

And the hot blood cooling
On the unkind smiles
Of the creatures that struggle

And the eyes of the dead
That wish they had jumped higher

I see the proud creatures,
Sons of survivors
Without guarantees
They fly, until they stumble

And no one knows what lies in the water

I met a woman
She was 70 years old and walked into the hospital with a pained limp
And a smile on her face
That an artist might struggle his whole life to capture
Her face was crinkled with an old scar and an evil red infection
Her hands were wrung with arthitis and the leg that limped turned out to be broken
But she was beautiful
Because she was so kind, and so ready to see beauty in the world
While being subject to such ugly circumstances
The world could have hammered at her with the infinite might of misfortune
And all calamity capable might rain on her with it's fiersome storm
Uncaring, unstoppable
Powerful in its unknowing chaos
Pummeling one who at first appears vulnerable
But with unending calm and perfect equanimity
She might regard it as a summer storm
Passing over, transititory and ineffable
Receiving the blows with unflinching peace
She might comment on the infinitesimal positivety
Cowering in the corner unnoticed by all but her kind and joyous perception
lesser souls would be broken by the weight of pain and misery
Drowned in a sea of their own tears
But a powerful Joy hides deep in the heart of this mild and humble woman.
Her soul is Viking and unassailable and when death takes her
He will surely ferry her to Valhalla to sit with honor amongst all warriors who fought and died battling the uncaring brutality of a world wrapped in apathy and heartbreak.
She is mighty
In the surety of her vision of a good world
That exists because she wishes it to
And because she wills it to
And so the world becomes more beautiful
Because she is in it
And she is beautiful

I find this an awkward thing to say
And I don't quite know why I'm saying it,
Though I suspect a reason

I loved you, you know

I loved you
Very intensely
More than was healthy given the situation
And my personal experience and emotional maturity
I tried really hard not to make you suffer for my love for you
Which is an odd thing to say unless you know how dumb young men can be.
I was very dumb, but,
I think I was successful, maybe?
I don't love you that way anymore
Which is a good thing for both of us.
But I do love you in a small way

I don't want anything from you
You are fine as you are
I don't need to be in your life
Your life is your own
And so is mine

But some silly romantic piece of me
Wants you to know
That I loved you very deeply
And when I think of you
I still smile

I wish you well
It was nice to see you
Last week

I saw him again,
Melancholy and polite
Like a brand new funeral director
Attending his own
He used to be so **** funny
Now he's quiet and mopey
I hope he gets the **** over it
It wasn't supposed to be a big deal
Like planting a tree for arbor day
It's a thing that you do
You plant it,
And say,
What a nice thing we made today
And you let it be
And walk away
You don't stand there and watch it grow
And complain because it's slow

Laugh you ******* clown
Laugh and don't think of me
Just say something nice
And go live your life

It was visceral
My gut clenched like I was falling in a dream
Deep in the core of me
Where the parasympathetic neuron bundles coalesce
And tell you to be calm

They were yelling
The wave of their signalling swept across the whole of me
I tingled and itched from my scalp to my toes
All the tiny blood vessels expanded
Fueling the sensory nerves of my skin,
My pupils dilated
My mouth salivated
I wanted to reach out with every bit of me
I wanted to expand to consume and experience every part of the world
To touch everything
To feel everything
Taste and Smell and See everything
I wanted to invent new organs of sensation
To better understand it, to experience more, to feel all of it

I jumped up
Like a dog
And reveled in the pure ecstatic joy of the sensory intensity
Every smell, the ambient humidity, the warm breeze
The color, the warmth of the sun,
The sounds of all the biologic engines of the world
Each of which was individually responsible for an infinite joy
And together were even more

It was a feeling that lasted only moments
And faded in soft turns
Till I became acclimated and in time oblivious
And the grass was once again, just grass
And the flowers were just weeds
And the dogs, and the children and the people in the town
Were just local residents going about their secret lives
And not the heaving mass of cells and life,
Climaxing in the moment of their existence to become more

Life is a battle,
You are fighting for your life
Every day
In subtle ways
I don't know why
But I do know
When you stop fighting the battle
It will **** you
If you let up
If you give ground
It will eventually grind you back to dirt
And life wouldn't be here
If not for a vicious tenacity
And a will to win
A will to keep fighting every day
Every animal in the wild
Goes up against ridiculous odds
Just to eat
Just to breed
To live even the simplest life
I still don't know why
But I do know that if you don't fight
You die

Minutes are counted in sneezes and coughs
Hours in trips to the bathroom and mealtimes
Weeks are the time between sunday brunch and sunday brunch
I could ask the sun what he thinks of time,
But he just sits there smirking
Spinning in aimless circles while the clouds dance around him
Someone says something
Someone laughs
Someone else farts
The same person laughs again
Has a few minutes passed or an hour?
How's the weather someone asks
70 degrees inside and dry,
The flurescent light flickers like a dead moon
Sometimes i go outside and watch the planes take off and land
Their large grey girth heaving in and out of the sky,
Like rhinos who know where they're going.
Can I do this for an additional 6 months?

If we tell each other a lie
And we both know its meaning
It's like we are a telling the truth in a strange way
It's ok to lie to me on some things,
Tell me you don't want to be together
Because our lives are going in separate directions
It's ok
I know why you are leaving,
I'll accept it eventually
But the lie helps ease me into it

Another lie is one I tell to myself
"It's better this way"
It's better to soften the sharp edges of reality
With some soft half truth
But the truth is
The truth will set you free
And you can't come to terms with reality
If you don't know what it is
Tell me a lie,
Tell me the truth
It will eventually become the same door.
I have to walk through it either way,

I've carried his body many times this week
I carried him to the helicopter
From the helicopter to the hospital
I lowered him into the coffin
And carried him to the cold storage
And to the waiting plane
I carry his body in my mind when I try to sleep
And think if there was anything I could have done better
And there are lots of things
And I carry that to
I know I will eventually set it down
But it is very heavy right now

In a moment
Or an hour or a day
We feel the incomplete nature of ourselves
We perceive an incongruity
Between desire
And reality
Reconciliation of the incongruity
Does not happen in a moment
In an hour, or a day
Some say the incongruity will always exist
And to release yourself from desire
Will make you one with reality
Consider though
The dead become dirt in the cool earth 
We all become one with reality sooner than we desire
Perhaps we should appreciate the incongruity

When it rains
I like to go running
In the cold dull November
In the late afternoon
When the sun is low
The fields and forrest are empty
And the whole world is inside
Pretending not to care


When it rains I imagine that I'm a fish
Sleek and wet and strong
Gliding through a cold wet world
I imagine that I'm the animal that I am
Without a pretense
Without an expectation beyond the physicality of the ambient conditions
I am an animal in the world
Surviving, breathing, being

I look at my damp slick hands
and the mist that comes from my heaving breath as I pump my legs, through the mud in the dim forest,
As I splash through the puddles and the streams,
And think to myself I'd swim the river itself if I had to.

When it rains
I imagine I'm the animal that I am
Running through the world unmoved
Strong and fierce and more alive
knowing that the world could **** me
If I laid down.

When it rains
The world doesn't care
It doesn't care even when it's sunny
But when it rains,
I remember

I'm the animal that I am
Running in the cold wet world

**** sadness
**** self pity
**** that infinite, cold,  black empty feeling inside you.

Sacrifice your self imposed mindset of misery
On an alter of the ***** you should have stopped giving

First,
Take a deep breath
Like you are getting ready to dive to the dark bottom of the sea

In,
In,
In,
Like you are ******* up the whole of the world itself
Like a god consuming the universe
Till the very cells of your lungs are stretched beyond meaning

And...

HOLD IT,

Hold it


Past the point you want to scream

To the point where your tears are only for your physical pain

And then a few awful seconds more

Hold it

And just at the moment

Where you think you might have forgotten how to breathe

Exhale

Let it go

Let everything go
Every last ******* piece
Every last bit inside
Like a deflating balloon


Let it pour out of you
Like the entirety of your being is seeking to leave

And when the easy bit leaves
Keep exhaling

Let

It

Go.

Till you are as empty as the infinite void itself
Till you are as empty as you tell yourself you are

And then blow off a little more

And when you can't release one more molecule of CO2
from your wrung out lungs,

Take a free breath

A deep but normal breath

Look around
The world doesn't care what goes on inside you
It doesn't care how you feel physically
Or emotionally
So stop feeling sorry for yourself
Take charge of it
Because it matters to you

Because you matter
Whether or not your sadness let's you admit it

There is a future
Where it might have worked
A future where you did end up falling for me
As I did for you
Would it still have lasted
What would it have become I wonder?
Asking that is fruitless
It didn't
Not in this universe
I'll go to sleep tonight wondering anyways
And wondering how and where you are
In this area of this universe

I hope you're well.

Goodnight.

There are two little fires sitting next to me
They radiate a fierce warmth meant only for themselves
The light and heat of their dance Illuminate the dim bar with a loving And jealous radience
If I sit too close
Or look directly
I will burn myself
Their fire is for themselves
But it's warm nonetheless
And I don't mind
I hope their fires burn for a long time to come

It started in a coffee shop
Where you worked
Four days a week
And I knew the hours
I knew it with a deep visceral longing
With a terror and a joy
A forbidden pleasure that sickens me
And I tried very hard to let you be
But you took the town over
With the musk of a presence that I longed for with the whole of my being
All the while, the quiet and logical part of my disrupted mind reminded me that being near you was not appropriate
How I loathed that Vulcan presence
But I heeded it more or less.
And as you became attached to all the little places
In this quiet little town
I knew I had to leave
in order to let my violent need die
And now having lived in a far off state I sit at the SeaTac gates
And the old familiar clutch of deaths bony palm on my soft intestines squeezes, and a small anxious voice whispers
What if she gets out at this gate?
Do you now own the whole of Alaska?
If I find you move to Chicago
Will I quail at O'Haire
With the small chance that you're there?

I  walk cautiously into the future
Through the dark fog
Of what could be, but isn't
There is a veil to pierce
And there are many ways to advance the story
Sometimes I hesitate
Wondering why I can't pause for a moment to enjoy what I have earned
But even if I wait or stall
The world moves regardless of me
And everything keeps changing
So that I need to catch up if I wait too long
Sometimes I feel like it speeds up and
I need to run faster, more efficiently
To keep pace with an idea of where I should be relative to the rest of it.
And sometimes I feel like a planetary body
Caught in the gravity of what is happening around me
And I will go where the forces pull me. And that my own will is so integrated into greater things that it just seems negligeable in comparison
But for brief moments,
Like a diver coming up for air,
Or a mountain climber with a good ledge
I can pause, and catch my breath,
And for a brief and fleeting moment
I can see the world around me,
Where I am in it,
And what lies ahead
And with those few seconds
Maybe I can alter my trajectory.

Zen monks talk of detachment
Of emptiness, for will or want
Towards the clearing of all desire
And in the great translucent sea
Of their complete freedom
They speak of the perfect simplicity
Of their mountain abode
And mundane chores for the maintenance of earthly vessels
Mentioning, only in passing,
How serene the world is in their high cold house
And how nice the whole world looks
Framed in their peasant doorway

I envy the envyless
Nowadays who can afford a whole  mountain to themselves.

My mind feels empty, empty of purpose, meaning,
Empty of the will to act on the world,
What is the world,
A stage of actors that moves timewise towards oblivion
A sphere of energy or motion,
Moving where?
And where am I moving in it
Where do I need to be
Do I need to be anywhere
Is there a meaningful difference between here
Or there, or there,
Between being at a friends house,
Or in jail,
Between being in Colorado or Kazahkstan
I mean it sort of matters,
Like how an ant prefers to be in the anthill
Instead of the ocean
But then is it just preference,
Or is purpose, and place, merely a function of existence
Is it necessary that I be a human, and act like a human
Because I'm a human?
Is my destiny tied to that?
So is my destiny just to be me, because I'm me,
and then someone else will be themselves, and that's just it
Society is just a bunch of selves, attempting to be themselves
and creating a standard of self, based on themselves,
Perpetuating a form of being that seems convenient,
And also somewhat meaningless
So if being me, is only important for maintaining the illusion
Of the meaningfulness of me.
Then is there meaning in being someone else,
Or in being something else?
Or being somewhere else?
Or is that just a shade of the same thing
Is there even meaning to the word meaning in the personal sense
Or is meaning so tied to essential function,
That to be meaningful, or live meaningfully
Is just to be as you as you can be?
And that's enough?
Or is it to become yourself, and then to choose what means you?
To decide what you mean, as a function, as a person
To yourself
To others?
I don't know,
I'm just asking for a friend.

I didn't have the guts to be a rebel
All the counterculture called at me
Asking me to join
In living rooms with Goodwill couches
Owned by a friend of a friend of a friend
They reached out to me
Hands and hearts so open that they couldn't stop bleeding
Asking me to join them
To make what I felt
To do what I wanted
Regardless of whatever the rules said.
They asked me,

Passing the tokens of a shared insobriety
That sought out the essential truth beneath
A thousand and one layers of culture and biology and social pressure
That only ever manages to turn diamonds into coal

I don't have the testicular fortitude to forsake the gifts of my birthright
My middle-class hope
Of a sliver of land beholden to an HOA
Of a wife who loves me kind of and children that will hold me to an anachronistic social standard that will leave me wanting
But it could be mine
It could be a world of my own making
With love and joy and plenty
And the mediocrity and turmoil
That is essential to life whether it is good or bad
It could be mine

The true face of the world is violent
And life struggles unconditionally to enact it's will on a world
That has extinguished more species than are alive

We are mayflies in the cosmos waxing and waning
And no one cares
And no one guarantees that I will eat tomorrow
Let alone find love
Or persist in the presence of my ancestors.

I don't have the ***** to wager my little bits of happiness
Even if there is a slim chance to change a million minds or more
Call me a coward
Call me a pragmatist
In a century call me dead
Right now you can call me mostly happy
And I don't know if there is anything better

Go up to the mountain
To the top,
If that is necessary for you
Stand, or sit, as the wind howls over you
And ask the guru of the mountain,
The questions that sit inside of you,
swirling with their merciless restless energy
Ask the questions about you
That you have always wondered.
Ask the questions about you
That you have always been terrified to ask
Ask about you
As everyone must do
And ask yourself about you
As everyone should do
Ask any question
Ask every question
Ask,
Seek
And know, that it doesn't matter,
There's a good chance you're an *******,
Just like the rest of us

We sacrifice little bits of our flesh
In order to tattoo life on ourselves

Every cut or scrape procured
In the pursuit of our joys
In the doing of worthwhile endeavors
In the fight against apathy
Leaves marks that remind us
That the sacrifice of ourself
Is often necessary
For great things

No one gets out of life in one piece
The wholeness of your physical form
Does not matter at the end

And in the end even our scars
Our injuries
The sum of our aquired disabilities
Will be destroyed
And cleansed from the world

But the things that we do
The things we give ourselves to
And things that we create will persist
In ripples and waves that travel across
The days of others they affect
Beyond our life.

Your scars are the tattoos that life gives you
Proof that you were not idle
But particaped in the game
And that you played hard.

If I were you I'd.....
Probably do the same thing
If I were you......
I'd be you,
If I had your parents, and the genes they wear
I had your childhood, and the joy and misery
Of your school days, and the games,
And that one teacher that everyone hates,
If I had your highschool crush and the depression
And the friends that were there and the ones that weren't
All the victories, and defeats,
And all the mediocre moments in between
If I were you....
I'd be you,
If you were me,
You'd be me, my decisions make sense to me because of everything
Everything that goes into making me, me, including the whys and the what fors, and the whos and hows of it all.
If I were you....
I'd probably try and be more forgiving towards myself,
If you were me.....
I'd hope you do the same.

Do not feel sorry for yourself
Self pity is silly
The whole world is full of the brutish agony of life
Struggling to survive the gales of it's storm
You are a small candle guttering in the wind

But

Please,
Know yourself
Inspect yourself
Dig deep and look deeply
Into all the little crevices and cracks
At all the dark lines of imperfection
All the edges that threaten to break themselves
On all the surfaces of the world
And when you have investigated the whole of yourself
Then own yourself
Own your cracks, your faults, your hates, your loves,
Your lacks
And when you own them,
When you have accepted the intimate nature of your own imperfection

Please,

Work on them

Change them,
And change yourself
Only a fool stays the same
Just,
Don't feel sorry for yourself

There is salt on the earth
dust and sand in the hot wind
that carries the world away
when the roots have burnt down

I am a shallow husk
I am the desolation
the fog of corruption
that masks what I once was.

all is nothing,
all is lost,
this is a dark land
where no life lives
and joy cannot survive

I mean it can't think
But, if it could
If an emotion could speak
Love would sound stupid
It would say silly nonsensical things like
I'll love you till the end of time
Or
I hope this moment lasts forever
It never says anything remotely realistic or true like
Right now I am high on dopamine and I think I want to give you my genes.
Or
I like you, and contingent on several unknown but definitely real factors I think I want to spend a long time with you.
Doesn't sound very romantic, but then, love is dumb
And doesn't care about the truth
If it did
Love might not be so fragile.