Isn't  lonely another kind of high?
Of how each high has a low of its own.
As if they are the two rivers destined to meet, except there is no ocean after that.
It's just the high and the low, following each other, back and forth, like long lost lovers.
So just like people use drugs,
I guess I use my lonely,
To get a clear head,they say.
On nights like these, I dance with him, him being my lonely.
He creates so much space for me, drools with me, I wonder if I could breathe this time, and yes I do, in that moment there is no one between me and my fresh breathes.
No regrets, no bad memories, no hatred.
I am as pure as a new born,
As light as dandelion seeds,
As happy as humanly possible.
I guess this is called being high.
My mum once told me- ' love everyone but love yourself first'.
So as I pen down these words, packed beneath my sheets, I wonder shouldn't we be high all the time?
Shouldn't we be in love with ourselves all the time?

I want to become a diver
like the scuba guys in the Thai cave
risking death to save life,
going deeper into convoluted passages
of darkness to pull life from it.

I want to become a heart surgeon
transplanting energizing mitochondria
into babies’ dying hearts
to revive and save damaged cells.
Oh to receive from the gods of creativity
an infusion of fresh energy
into this old body
and renew flagging cells
with a flowering fragrance
as sweet and unique as Plumeria!

May this diving deeper
be as fruitful now as it has been
in the decisive moments
I was able to conquer pride and self
to reach out to others
whose spirits had frowns
whose life energy was down.

I know: thinking, reading and writing
are not quite enough to reach and taste
the fruits of angels.
Like the classic tension
between “faith and works”
“deeper” means a marriage
of information and application
to get transformation.

And so these moments of writing poems
and diving deeper, rising higher
for the creative spirit
are not divorced
from kindness and reaching out
in friendship, intimacy, and love,
from taking time and spending energy
beyond these meditative walls
embracing life where it calls.

I am a diver and a surgeon
a spark striker, a flame keeper
always desiring
to move
deeper, deeper, deeper.

the mountain only grows steeper
so that your roots can dig in deeper

—keep climbing