The new family dog
sits at the table
with sugar in his cereal

I talk to him so he won’t be lonely.
I ask him how his day was.
He looks at me
through his brown dog eyes
sitting in the chaos
of a hallucinatory disease.
I sit at the sidelines
of gradual Death.

I babysit him on weekends
and even from the shore, i can see him
on his island
chasing the tail
of dissipating thoughts.

He wasn’t always a dog.

He had a big bushy afro.
And a truckers moustache
that got him attention from the ladies.

He managed an automotive parts franchise
and travelled often.

He owned twelve of the worlds finest tobacco pipes, and
smoked *** out of all of them.

He married the love of his life
at 19 years old.
When the doctor told them, she would never bear children.

But he watched
four boys become men.
And only two were adopted.

He became a grandfather
and every passover, he sat in the throne
of a kingdom
he built.

His grandchildren
loved him
unconditionally.


When he tells me these stories now,
he sits behind glass, where he watches the kingdom.

Without him.

Sitting at the breakfast table, I want him to know:
I love you, I can’t help you.
I love you—
Goodbye.

Though the first carried more miles, the second day of the hike was totally and unapologetically uphill. 
When you ascend, hiking becomes the zen of endurance.



First, you are stripped of all the pleasures of hiking. Your excitement is boiled into lactic acid. Your love for the trail is baked, hardened and dehydrated into thoughts of laying down in the sun until the heat shrivels you into an unconscious raisin.



Try as you may to put on your “isn’t hiking just a slice of heaven?” face, strangers passing you on the downhill stride can only see your “PLEASE GOD, HELP ME OR ******* **** ME” face.

As much as hiking really is a small slice of heaven, there is no denying the living-death of taking 10 straight miles to the knees under the chaffing hell of a 50 pound sack in the relentless sun. 


But when you’re back in an office, sitting on your cushy little ergonomic chair, you long for the sweat and the torture that forces your mind to the ankle deathtraps of mountain terrain. To the deep valley behind and below you, and the crystal basin at the foot of the granite Giants.



The worst thing you can do is ignore the pain—that makes it relentless. Instead you focus on the pain until you become it. The only thing left is the moment between each step, when you remember why you are here and what it is worth. Every time your foot touches dirt, it leaves twice the footprint. One on the mountain and another in your memory where you will safeguard the misery of your ascent and hold on for dear life. One day, when your knees are too weak and your body can no longer table your pack, all the pleasures and joys of the trail that you once thought dissipated in the steam of uphill toil will come rushing back with the magnified strength of every year between you and the present you once knew and respected enough to actually live.

And if you didn’t, if you let it only be pain to get through and not to focus or dwell on, then that is what it is and will always be. A dull memory of pain, dark and somber and incomplete.

Our lives move in waves of unimaginable excitement and waves of crippling boredom. Long rivers of suffocating incompetence leading into a waterfall of rapid evolution. Each day rides on the back of a revolving barrel of emotions. No matter how much we learn, how hard we try, how many years we put under our feet, we will never find a path of permanent confidence, happiness or success. Perfection is a mirage luring us deeper into an endless desert. Don’t chase it. Even if you believe with all of your heart, in your bones deep inside—it isn’t real. It never will be, and never was. Our lives move in waves. ride them with style. Don’t sit there, letting them hit you. Don’t drown in apathy. Ride them all. Each time you will fall, but you can’t ride forever. It isn’t up to you. The ocean isn’t yours. But so long as you have a life, you have a choice to use it.

You soften your eyes
Trying to hide your resent
As I do the same

62

“Sown in dishonor”!
Ah! Indeed!
May this “dishonor” be?
If I were half so fine myself
I’d notice nobody!

“Sown in corruption”!
Not so fast!
Apostle is askew!
Corinthians 1. 15. narrates
A Circumstance or two!

I know what you feel can tear you apart,
You ask why you deserve this broken heart.
Looking in a deeper lens,
Out of sight from the present tense,
I know there's a Truth, I've been there, too,
For why I've been forced to live so dark & blue.

Nothing in Life comes with certainty.
There's always an unfair Mystery -
And amidst the mists of misery
Of my darkest, coldest history,
There are lessons that become revealed to me.
So, now can I see the positivity.

The pain & sorrow, the feeling hollow -
How can I be blessed with this mess?
I asked myself this - Is there something I missed?
It didn't make sense. Every time I ask "why?" -
The pain becomes more immense.

But I was strong; I had to be.
I lived happily, like Momma wanted me.
Carrying on, singing my song,
My melody shaped by her Memory.
She lived on through me. Indefinitely.

Now, I look back, the pain, it lasts,
But my confusion, my rage,
"How could He take her away?" --
Easily, now, it's removed.
There are things that begin to make sense.
I've been shaped by Life Events.
The bad times were necessary.
They taught the most to me.

My regrets taught me Lessons I need.
Maybe for this Life, for the next, or maybe indeed,
For the Universe, on yet another lens.
Yet again, out of sight
From the present tense.

Our memories cannot be put into mediums.
There are no photos or videos,
No stories to be written,
No prime time television episodes;

The indescribable, undeniable energy fizzing,
Binding you, finding me, winding us,
Joined in divinity.

Every way I could make
Our moments into art,
I fall short, full stop -
Are we already art?
The way you affect my heart?

Is it living in the moment?
When we're listening or kissing?
Missing no other component,
No further desires or wishing?

All I feel when around your field,
Is that I'm drinking up Life;
That this is the consciousness I was gifted to feel.
And whether or not reality has anything that is actually real,
Layer by layer, the truth becomes revealed.

It's my observance to every occurrence -
The flow of Nature's currents;
What, in life, has pertinence.
Every interaction with you is marvelous,
and of utmost importance.
You're the physical form of happiness.
And I run into a hindrance,
When relaying my senses,
To anyone else not witness,
To what we feel together in this -
Mysterious, beautiful, eternal, immense.

I kissed the dying orchid.
My loving intentions dedicated
Towards the withering flower.
I smelt its perfumed essence.
Sent it off with a blessing.

Now the twist hits me.

I feel like I brought love into me.
What I intended to give
To that dying orchid,
Was breathed back into me,
Unintentionally.