Get maybe six or seven hours sleep,
wake and struggle out of bed.
Stretch to get out the kinks,
living with pain from toes to head.
Visit the bathroom in a hurry,
urgent needs attended to.
Shower and save for no real reason.
Put out the dog, let in the cat.
Feed both and give each a pat.
A bowl of cold cereal with fruit
Lactate milk, brew hot tea, one sugar,
a little cream, English muffin with
honey, tidy up the kitchen.
Turn on the morning local news,
avoiding the Breaking News channels
that mess with my head.
Maybe watch a game show or two, just
to lighten the mood. Return to the kitchen
and for a minute forget why I am there.
I seem to do that a lot lately.
Mount the treadmill for 20 minutes or so.
Take my meds, drink three glasses of water,
hydration being very important it's said.

And so, it goes each day a duplicate of the
one before and the one tomorrow. A captive
caught in a repetitious bubble of advancing
age, kept company by a lifetime of memories
of all that I once was and shall never be again.

Not complaining, I have all I need, a good roof
overhead, food, a home of my own, family close
by, reasonably good health and I am not homeless.
Go to bed happy, arise the same way. No real regrets.

Getting old is a two-edged sword, it cuts both ways
and leaves some scars in the process.
Quiet pragmatic acceptance is the key, along with
realistic expectations.

I want to be buried in a grave after I die, not three months before I die and then I want to smoke Mexican cigarettes with a gang of Cuban Negroes for a few days during my next unpaid vacation and then I want to go swimmin' with their crack *** women.

I have been patiently waiting, I can
hear him stirring behind that huge
door, the giant awakes.

He emerges, I am careful to not
get stepped on, even as I greet him
with friendly rubs up against his
naked shins, as always, he pats my
head, rubs my neck. I murmur a
greeting song and he responds in kind.

We stop at the big glass door to admire
the birds and new day. I perk up at the
sight of the winged ones jumping and
feeding on the ground outside. A quite
vibration sound comes from within me,
it happens often, I'm not sure why.

I have ventured outside a few times,
it can be cold and wet out there, I think
I prefer the inside the best.

All my attention is upon my rumbling
stomach and my empty food dish in the
kitchen. The giant leads me there, one
last look outside at the birds and then
eagerly I follow him as I do every day,
everywhere. He calls me Cat, I don't
know why.

The giant is my dearest friend and then
my food dish comes in a close second.
Later he will let me sit on his warm lap
and scratch me under my chin and perhaps
rub my belly, I always enjoy  that.

Love, I think, is the closest we will ever be to God.

Whether we were carved, sculpted, or blessed with life by beautiful accident,
we are the closest to divinity when guided by our hearts, whose hearth provides life to the soul.

I have loved. My heart bursts and aches with love,
overwhelmed, overflowing, singing its song through tears, hugs, and kisses--through hugs, words, and acts.

Love motivates us. Love guides us. Love strengthens us. Love weakens us.

Love guides us to die at any hand to save the life of another,

Love guides us to rot in numb existence, and guides us to blossom in beauty and truth.

Love guides us to express in measures beyond our own comprehension--ans guides us to suppress our strongest nature, for the sake of another.

I belive love is a double edged sword. I belive love is a true, divine power--perhaps born of vital, carnal need, or perhaps born or divine mercy and grace.

I have loved.

I love my mother, whose sunlight brings the day and whose gentle twilight brings my sleep.

I love my father, whose endless patience and guidance brings the tide to weather my soul into rounded, ready stone.

I love my sister, whose soul sings alongside mine in both contrast and harmony--together we learn. We give and take--strength, weakness, lessons and lucky breaks--we are the silver glass, reflection and change.

I love my brothers--one whose near nature reflects my own, and who teaches me what I could be. What he is now--better, grounded, and blossoming.

What time grants us is grace--growth and understanding. Love.

My youngest brother, born so long after me as to be a baby throughout my life--I love him like I've never loved before, fiercely, greatly, and with strength to undo man, mountains, and the laws that govern this earth. A love to undo the written code of man.

With enough time, I understand that this must be the way my mother loves me--and I wonder whether my love compares to hers, or if this life changing love is only a distant echo of what a mother truly feels for her children.

One day I will know--I can only hope, or pray, that all those I love now will be there to find out alongside me.

I love my dog. She is gone now, but I know my soul grew alongside hers, and I know one day we will meet again--not for a grand reunion, but instead for the small things that warmed our hearts from the start--

Understanding, learned across a decade more of puppy and child growing together. Safety, care, and companionship--I was there for her, and she was there for me.

Love is the language of the soul. I believe it to be a gift--the greatest gift, motivator, and architect of our world--

An incredible chance--a carnal blessing from something greater than ourselves. Evolution, God, some kind of ancient law--whatever it may be, the power to unite hearts across species, bloodlines, histories, natures--there is nothing more beautiful, and nothing nearly as frightening.

Now.

I have loved. I love through acts, words, and thoughts--through distance traveled, through closed lips and open ears, and through collarless companion walking alongside me at night.

To be loved is to be free--and to love is to he shackled.
I think there is nothing greater or more natural in this world.

I have lost some of those I love. I will lose more yet as I live.

I am terrified--scarred already, perhaps even changed beyond any hope of returning to what I once was.
Sleep is lost to me, agonizing over those who my heart bleeds for--those I've lost, and those I've yet to lose.

But in the daylight, hugging my mother, loving my father, guiding my brothers, watching my sister, and measuring graves overgrown with grass--

I know love is what keeps me here. Love is what lets me bleed, what let's me cry--what let's me feel the divine privilege of heartache.

Without love we are less than beasts. Without love, we are without guidance, creation, and compassion--

Without love there is no children. No mothers, no fathers, no friends nor sons or daughters--no art, thought, or care.

Love is a double edged sword.

Humanity has blessed me with a living ignorance--apathy that allows me to sometimes look away from what the future holds. Away from the inferno that is the inevitable end of all love, as all living things comes to pass--

But humanity has blessed me with love itself. Something stronger than thought or reason--something strong enough to force evolution, to force strength and conquest.

As I think of those I've lost, I know to be true that I feel no bitterness towards the power of the heart--for the heart has taken me, wholly and truly as it has so many of our species and countless others.

Love has won, as it was always meant to. Instead of bitterness I feel only resigned gratitude--knowing the truth that love will bless me with strength and will beyond the purpose of our flesh and bones--

Knowing that love is what lies at the end for us all. Our last thoughts as we pass into what lies beyond, and the raging, consuming fire that turns body and mind to destruction in the face of love's loss and threat.

I fear love, and I worship it. I curse it, and I bless it.
Such immeasurable pain can only be matched by such immeasurable love--a feeling that written words such as these and all those before and after can hardly hope to describe.

I know that my life is one day forfeit. Would I have given my life for those loved who have already passed, and how I would give my life for those yet to come.

No matter our origin, our belief, or our present--love is what has brought our species to this morning's sunrise. Love is what has brought all other mammals to the morning that dawns on this Earth at every turn of its axis.

Love is written into our bones. On our Earth, love is life--love is time, memory, heartache and change. Love is species' persistence. Life's persistence.

I am scared. I am grateful. I am resigned. I am my heart, and my heart is love--these words, though written through tears and joy, are a faded echo of what love truly is.

Look in your heart, and look at those you love.

You will understand, as we all do in the end.