We had wanted to leave our homes before six in the morning
but left late and lazy at ten or ten-thirty with hurried smirks
and heads turned to the road, West
driving out against the noonward horizon
and visions before us of the great up-and-over

and tired we were already of stiff-armed driving neurotics in Montreal
and monstrous foreheaded yellow bus drivers
ugly children with long middle fingers
and tired we were of breaking and being yelled at by beardless bums
but thought about the beards at home we loved
and gave a smile and a wave nonetheless

Who were sick and tired of driving by nine
but then had four more hours still
with half a tank
then a third of a tank
then a quarter of a tank
then no tank at all
except for the great artillery halt and discovery
of our tyre having only three quarters of its bolts

Saved by the local sobriety
and the mystic conscious kindness of the wise and the elderly
and the strangers: Autoshop Gale with her discount familiar kindness;
Hilda making ready supper and Ray like I’ve known you for years
that offered me tools whose functions I’ve never known
and a handshake goodbye

     and "yes we will say hello to your son in Alberta"
     and "yes we will continue safely"
     and "no you won’t see us in tomorrow’s paper"
     and tired I was of hearing about us in tomorrow’s paper

Who ended up on a road laughing deliverance
in Ralphton, a small town hunting lodge
full of flapjacks and a choir of chainsaws
with cheap tomato juice and eggs
but the four of us ended up paying for eight anyway

and these wooden alley cats were nothing but hounds
and the backwoods is where you’d find a cheap child's banjo
and cheap leather shoes and bear traps and rat traps
and the kinds of things you’d fall into face first

Who sauntered into a cafe in Massey
that just opened up two weeks previous
where the food was warm and made from home
and the owner who swore to high heaven
and piled her Sci-Fi collection to the ceiling
in forms of books and VHS

but Massey herself was drowned in a small town
where there was little history and heavy mist
and the museum was closed for renovations
and the stores were run by diplomats
or sleezebag no-cats
and there was one man who wouldn’t show us a room
because his baby sitter hadn’t come yet
but the babysitter showed up through the backdoor within seconds
though I hadn't seen another face

        and the room was a landfill
        and smelled of stale cat **** anyhow
        and the lobby stacked to the ceiling with empty beer box cans bottles
        and the taps ran cold yellow and hot black through spigots

but we would be staying down the street
at the inn of an East-Indian couple

who’s eyes were not dilated 
and the room smelled
lemon-scented

and kept on driving lovingly without a care in the world
but only one of us had his arms around a girl
and how lonely I felt driving with Jacob
in the fog of the Agawa pass;

following twin red eyes down a steep void mass
where the birch trees have no heads
and the marshes pool under the jagged foothills
that climb from the water above their necks

that form great behemoths
with great voices bellowing and faces chiselled hard looking down
and my own face turned upward toward the rain

Wheels turning on a black asphalt river running uphill around great Superior
that is the ocean that isn’t the ocean but is as big as the sea
and the cloud banks dig deep and terrible walls

and the sky ends five times before night truly falls
and the sun sets slower here than anywhere
but the sky was only two miles high and ten long anyway

The empty train tracks that seldom run
and some rails have been lifted out
with a handful of spikes that now lay dormant

and the hill sides start to resemble *******
or faces or the slow curving back of some great whale

-and those, who were finally stranded at four pumps
with none but the professional Jacob reading great biblical instructions at the nozzle
nowhere at midnight in a town surrounded

by moose roads
                             moose lanes
                                                     moose rivers
and everything mooses

ending up sleeping in the maw of a great white wolf inn
run by Julf or Wolf or John but was German nonetheless

and woke up with radios armed
and arms full
and coffee up to the teeth
with teeth chattering
and I swear to God I saw snowy peaks
but those came to me in waking dream:

"Mountains dressed in white canvas
gowns and me who placed
my hands upon their *******
that filled the sky"

Passing through a buffet of inns and motels
and spending our time unpacking and repacking
and talking about drinking and cheap sandwiches
but me not having a drink in eight days

and in one professional inn we received a professional scamming
and no we would not be staying here again
and what would a trip across the country be like
if there wasn’t one final royal scamming to be had

and dreams start to return to me from years of dreamless sleep:

and I dream of hers back home
and ribbons in a raven black lattice of hair
and Cassadaic exploits with soft but honest words

and being on time with the trains across the plains  
and the moon with a shower of prairie blonde
and one of my father with kind words
and my mother on a bicycle reassuring my every decision

Passing eventually through great plains of vast nothingness
but was disappointed in seeing that I could see
and that the rumours were false
and that nothingness really had a population
and that the great flat land has bumps and curves and etchings and textures too

beautiful bright golden yellow like sprawling fingers
white knuckled ablaze reaching up toward the sun
that in this world had only one sky that lasted a thousand years

and prairie driving lasts no more than a mountain peak
and points of ember that softly sigh with the one breath
of our cars windows that rushes by with gratitude for your smile

And who was caught up with the madness in the air
with big foaming cigarettes in mouths
who dragged and stuffed down those rolling fumes endlessly
while St. Jacob sang at the way stations and billboards and the radio
which was turned off

and me myself and I running our mouth like the coughing engine
chasing a highway babe known as the Lady Valkyrie out from Winnipeg
all the way to Saskatoon driving all day without ever slowing down
and eating up all our gas like pez and finally catching her;

      Valkyrie who taught me to drive fast
      and hovering 175 in slipstreams
      and flowing behind her like a great ghost Cassady ******* in dreamland Nebraska
      only 10 highway crossings counted from home.

Lady Valkyrie who took me West.
Lady Valkyrie who burst my wings into flame as I drew a close with the sun.
Lady Valkyrie who had me howl at slender moon;

     who formed as a snowflake
     in the light on the street
     and was gone by morning
     before I asked her name

and how are we?
and how many?

Even with old Tom devil singing stereo
and riding shotgun the entire trip from day one
singing about his pony, and his own personal flophouse circus,
and what was he building in there?

There is a fair amount of us here in these cars.
Finally at light’s end finding acquiescence in all things
and meeting with her eye one last time; flashed her a wink and there I was, gone.
Down the final highway crossing blowing wind and fancy and mouth puttering off
roaring laughter into the distance like some tremendous Phoenix.

Goodnight Lady Valkyrie.

The evening descends and turns into a sandwich hysteria
as we find ourselves riding between cities of transports
and that one mad man that passed us speeding crazy
and almost hit head-on with Him flowing East

and passed more and more until he was head of the line
but me driving mad lunacy followed his tail to the bumper
passing fifteen trucks total to find our other car
and felt the great turbine pull of acceleration that was not mine

mad-stacked behind two great beasts
and everyone thought us moon-crazy; Biblical Jake
and Mad Hair Me driving a thousand
eschewing great gusts of wind speed flying

Smashing into the great ephedrine sunset haze of Saskatoon
and hungry for food stuffed with the thoughts of bedsheets
off the highway immediately into the rotting liver of dark downtown
but was greeted by an open Hertz garage
with a five-piece fanfare brass barrage
William Tell and a Debussy Reverie
and found our way to bedsheets most comfortably

Driving out of Saskatoon feeling distance behind me.
Finding nothing but the dead and hollow corpses of roadside ventures;

more carcasses than cars
and one as big as a moose
and one as big as a bear
and no hairier

and driving out of sunshine plain reading comic book strip billboards
and trees start to build up momentum
and remembering our secret fungi in the glove compartment
that we drove three thousand kilometres without remembering

and we had a "Jesus Jacob, put it away brother"
and went screaming blinded by smoke and paranoia
and three swerves got us right
and we hugged the holy white line until twilight

And driving until the night again takes me foremast
and knows my secret fear in her *****
as the road turns into a lucid *** black and makes me dizzy
and every shadow is a moose and a wildcat and a billy goat
and some other car

and I find myself driving faster up this great slanderous waterfall until I meet eye
with another at a thousand feet horizontal

then two eyes

then a thousand wide-eyed peaks stretching faces upturned to the celestial black
with clouds laid flat as if some angel were sleeping ******* on a smokestack
and the mountains make themselves clear to me after waiting a lifetime for a glimpse
then they shy away behind some old lamppost and I don’t see them until tomorrow

and even tomorrow brings a greater distance with the sunlight dividing stone like 'The Ancient of Days'
and moving forward puts all into perspective

while false cabins give way
and the gas stations give way
and the last lamppost gives way
and its only distance now that will make you true
and make your peaks come alive

Like a bullrush, great grey slopes leap forth as if branded by fire
then the first peaks take me by surprise
and I’m told that these are nothing but children to their parents
and the roads curve into a gentle valley
and we’re in the feeding zone

behind the gates of some great geological zoo
watching these lumbering beasts
finishing up some great tribal *******
because tomorrow they will be shrunk
and tomorrow ever-after smaller

Nonetheless, breathless in turn I became
it began snowing and the pines took on a different shape
and the mountains became covered white
and great glaciers could be seen creeping
and tourists seen gawking at waterfalls and waterfowls
and fowl play between two stones a thousand miles high

climbing these Jasper slopes flying against wind and stone
and every creak lets out its gentle tone and soft moans
as these tyres rub flat against your back
your ancient skin your rock-hard bones

and this peak is that peak and it’s this one too
and that’s Temple, and that’s Whistler
and that’s Glasgow and that’s Whistler again
and those are the Three Sisters with ******* ablaze

and soft glowing haze your sun sets again among your peaks
and we wonder how all these caves formed
and marvelled at what the flood brought to your feet
as roads lay wasted by the roadside

in the epiphany of 3:00am realizing
that great Alta's straights and highway crossings
are formed in torturous mess from mines of 'Mt. Bleed'
and broken ribs and liver of crushed mountain passes
and the grey stones taxidermied and peeled off
and laid flat painted black and yellow;
the highways built from the insides
of the mountain shells

Who gave a “What now. New-Brunswick?”

and a “What now, Quebec, and Ontario, and Manitoba, and Saskatchewan";
**** fools clumsily dancing in the valleys; then the rolling hills; then the sea that was a lake
then the prairies and not yet the mountains;

running naked in formation with me at the lead
and running naked giving the finger to the moon
and the contrails, and every passing blur on the highway
dodging rocks, and sandbars
and the watchful eye of Mr. and Mrs. Law
and holes dug-up by prairie dogs
and watching with no music
as the family caravans drove on by

but drove off laughing every time until two got anxious for bed and slowed behind
while the rambling Jacob and I had to wait in the half-moon spectacle
of a black-tongue asphalt side-road hacking darts and watching for grizzlies
for the other two to finish up with their birthday *** exploits
though it was nobodies birthday

and then a timezone was between us
 and they were in the distant future
and nobodies birthday was in an hour from now

then everything was good
and everyone was satiated
then everything was a different time again
and I was running on no sleep or a lot of it
leaping backward in time every so often
like gaining a new day but losing space on the surface of your eye

but I stared up through curtains of starlight to mother moon
and wondered if you also stared
and was dumbfounded by the majesty of it all

and only one Caribou was seen the entire trip
and only one live animal, and some forsaken deer
and only a snake or a lonesome caterpillar could be seen crossing such highway straights
but the water more refreshing and brighter than steel
and glittered as if it were hiding some celestial gem
and great ravines and valleys flowed between everything
and I saw in my own eye prehistoric beasts roaming catastrophe upon these plains
but the peaks grew ever higher and I left the ground behind

You looked much prettier with long hair.
Don’t - give me that, show me a smile
it’s better to be natural oh!
look your arms are so hairy, hairier than mine.

Not rowdy or older than myself but definitely
confident and intelligent and maybe even
‘quirky’ as long as she’s thin
and kind. Because I don’t like fat girls

how to find your dream woma
where to find dream woman online free

I think I’m still in love with Grace but
she ignores and blanks and shuns me even
after I shared so much yet
she doesn’t even seem to care

hey
I’m verrru drunk
I see u
the little green dot next to your name haha
night then iguess

I think I just hate women and that
stupid insipid conceited *****
couldn’t tell a good guy if
he cuffed her clean
across the cheekbone
and spat in both her eyes

I guess,

The world that burst forth
From my tender red womb
Is maniacally clawing
To get back inside,
Now,

Or am I pulling it by
It's tangled hairs?

Afterall,

I am flustered
With it wrenching
The brush from my hand,
Each time I reach out
To unravel the mess
It's made,

(Or, I made?)

Either way,

I'll let bygones be bygones,
Even if it means
Being carried away -
Lost in sterilized hair strands,
Sleeping wordlessly,
Amid

Insanely white teeth.

Old Deuteronomy’s lived a long time;
He’s a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria’s accession.
Old Deuteronomy’s buried nine wives
And more—I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy,
When he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
The Oldest Inhabitant croaks: “Well, of all …
Things… Can it be … really! … No!… Yes!…
**! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My mind may be wandering, but I confess
I believe it is Old Deuteronomy!”

Old Deuteronomy sits in the street,
He sits in the High Street on market day;
The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,
But the dogs and the herdsmen will turn them away.
The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,
And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED—
So that nothing untoward may chance to distrub
Deuteronomy’s rest when he feels so disposed
Or when he’s engaged in domestic economy:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: “Well, of all …
Things… Can it be … really! … No!… Yes!…
**! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My sight’s unreliable, but I can guess
That the cause of the trouble is Old Deuteronomy!”

Old Deuteronomy lies on the floor
Of the Fox and French Horn for his afternoon sleep;
And when the men say: “There’s just time for one more,”
Then the landlady from her back parlour will peep
And say: “New then, out you go, by the back door,
For Old Deuteronomy mustn’t be woken—

I’ll have the police if there’s any uproar”—
And out they all shuffle, without a word spoken.
The digestive repose of that feline’s gastronomy
Must never be broken, whatever befall:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: “Well, of all …
Things… Can it be … really! … No!… Yes!…
**! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My legs may be tottery, I must go slow
And be careful of Old Deuteronomy!”

Of the awefull battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles:
together with some account of the participation of the
     Pugs and the Poms, and the intervention of the Great
     Rumpuscat

The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
That they do not like fighting, yet once in a way,
They will now and again join in to the fray
And they
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.

Now on the occasion of which I shall speak
Almost nothing had happened for nearly a week
(And that’s a long time for a Pol or a Peke).
The big Police Dog was away from his beat—
I don’t know the reason, but most people think
He’d slipped into the Wellington Arms for a drink—
And no one at all was about on the street
When a Peke and a Pollicle happened to meet.
They did not advance, or exactly retreat,
But they glared at each other, and scraped their hind
     feet,
And they started to
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.

Now the Peke, although people may say what they please,
Is no British Dog, but a Heathen Chinese.
And so all the Pekes, when they heard the uproar,
Some came to the window, some came to the door;
There were surely a dozen, more likely a score.
And together they started to grumble and wheeze
In their huffery-snuffery Heathen Chinese.
But a terrible din is what Pollicles like,
For your Pollicle Dog is a dour Yorkshire tyke,
And his braw Scottish cousins are snappers and biters,
And every dog-jack of them notable fighters;
And so they stepped out, with their pipers in order,
Playing When the Blue Bonnets Came Over the Border.
Then the Pugs and the Poms held no longer aloof,
But some from the balcony, some from the roof,
Joined in
To the din
With a
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.

Now when these bold heroes together assembled,
That traffic all stopped, and the Underground trembled,
And some of the neighbours were so much afraid
That they started to ring up the Fire Brigade.
When suddenly, up from a small basement flat,
Why who should stalk out but the GREAT RUMPUSCAT.
His eyes were like fireballs fearfully blazing,
He gave a great yawn, and his jaws were amazing;
And when he looked out through the bars of the area,
You never saw anything fiercer or hairier.
And what with the glare of his eyes and his yawning,
The Pekes and the Pollicles quickly took warning.
He looked at the sky and he gave a great leap—
And they every last one of them scattered like sheep.

And when the Police Dog returned to his beat,
There wasn’t a single one left in the street.

One of the most amazing things about women is, they shine early. At age 20 you can tell the girl you’d love to love, and she shines. Her smile and her eyes light up the room like a roaring fire. And while she smiles, she loves the world around her, twofold; like a young girl in lust and a woman in love. She draws you in, and you cannot escape.

When you’re young, she will never love you as you deserve, if you deserve to be loved, which is a conundrum in itself. And that’s the motive here, and I apologize to those looking for a more obscure message. But when you’re 21, with a ****, and hormones, and a life waiting for you to **** it up, chances are you are not ready to be loved. But you want to be, because we all want to be. It’s our incarnate desire as humans to love and to be loved, unconditionally. And while she smiles, and while you think you love her and she’ll love you, understand she’ll always be looking towards the future, because the future right now is the best she has, and if you aren’t the future, which you likely aren’t, say goodbye.

It will get better than you. It will always get better than you, statistically. Statistically speaking, you are not the best. Statistically speaking, you will never be the best. It’s statistically impossible, and even I understand this having failed every math class I’ve ever begun. It’s impossible because you are you, human, and from two parents who were also human, so therefore perfection was never truly in your nature. You can try, and the rest of us will watch you fail. And as you fail, we will laugh. We will joke, and we will make fun, until it is our own turn to fail, wherein we shall weep and expect the sympathy of those around us.

But she’s still smiling, only now, at other guys. And these other guys have bigger chests and more defined arms than you. **** IQ and emotional reality, they have abs you couldn’t ever work for, and they’re southern regions, let us not digress. She wants Superman, all you can offer is Clark Kent, before he’s cool. You are not a superhero. You are mortal.

You will love her, you may always love her. She had the smile to draw you in at first, the smile to draw you in at night, and the smile to keep you awake for years after. She was it, she was perfect, she was the one, or so you tell yourself. Because hindsight offers the beauty of 20-20 vision, and you want so badly to see clearly. But you are young, as is she. And in youth comes lust, comes the man with defined features, chiseled abs and the IQ of your ******* dog.

BUT he’s not as hairy, thank god, because you own a Golden Retriever and you’d be ashamed to know the girl you loved is ******* someone hairier than you dog. At least you can pet your dog, but petting a man is, frankly, a little creepy. At least you know she’s not ******* someone like you, who undergoes the self conscious activity of man-scaping every Friday, when your friends pump you up enough to get you dreaming you have a chance of getting laid that night. So you pluck every extraneous hair hoping Ms. Lucky will not notice the red marks and the razor burn where you tried to hide the history of your sad genetics.

So call them Fido for me, of Fluffy or something else that sounds like they dog they are. **** him until your ***** is so ******* sore you forget what my name even was, how I spelt it, or how I pronounced it. And keep doing that, until you realize, eventually, of all the men you saw, of all the men you slept with, maybe one of us knew you’re middle name, and maybe one of us knew how you pronounced your last name correctly, and one of us us knew exactly how you spelt your first name, with the two t’s and the e at the end, every try, no regrets.

I never got it wrong.

Okay.

You used to be a *****.

Now don’t get self conscious. We all used to be *****. Check out the period at the end of this sentence. That tiny little dot is around 600 microns wide. When you were a ***** you were about 40 microns wide. And you were so cute back then too with your little tail wagging all over the place and your love of swimming. Boy could you swim. In fact if you hadn’t outswum your siblings, you might be a slightly different version of yourself right now. Maybe you’d have a higher-pitched laugh, hairier arms, or stand two inches shorter.

You had a great life as a ***** but always felt incomplete. The truth is you weren’t whole until you met an egg. And then you two began a nine month project to make a cool new version of you. It took a while but you grew arms and legs and eyeballs and lungs. You grew nerves and nails and eardrums and tongues.

For a ***** to meet an egg it means your mom met your dad. But it’s not just them. Think about how many people had to meet, fall in love, and make love for you to be here.

Here’s the answer: A lot. Like a lot a lot.

Before they had you, none of your ancestors drowned in a pond, got strangled by a python, or skied into a tree. None of your ancestors choked on a peach pit, were trampled by buffalo, or got their tie stuck in an assembly line.

None of your ancestors was a ******.

You are the most modern, brightest spark of years and years and years of survivors who all had to meet each other in order to eventually make you.

Your nineteenth century Grandma met your nineteenth century Grandpa down at the candle-making shoppe. She liked his muttonchops and he thought she looked cute churning butter.

Your Middle Ages Grandpa met your Middle Ages Grandma while they both poured hot oil from the castle turrets on pillaging vikings. She liked his grunts and he thought the flowers in her hair made her heaving bosoms jump out.
Your Ice Age Grandpa crossing the Bering Bridge in a woolly mammoth fur met your Ice Age Grandma dragging a club in the opposite direction. He liked her saber-tooth necklace and she dug his unibrow.

Your ancient rainforest Grandpa was picking berries naked in the bush while your ancient rainforest Grandma was spearing dodos for dinner. She liked his jungle funk and he liked her cave drawings. If it wasn’t for the picnic they had afterwards, maybe you wouldn’t be here.

You’re pretty lucky all those people met, fell in love, made love, had babies, and raised them into other people who did it all over again. This happened over and over and over again for you to be here. Look around the plane, coffee shop, or park right now. Look at your husband snoring in bed, your girlfriend watching TV, or your sister playing in the backyard. You are surrounded by lucky people. They are all the result of long lines of survivors.

So you’re a survivor, too. You’re the latest and greatest. You’re the top of the line. You’re the very best nature has to offer.

But a lot had to happen before all your strong, fiery ancestors met each other and fell in love over and over again for hundreds of thousands of years …

So let’s stop for a second and pull back again. Let’s pull way, way, way, way back.

Okay.

Let’s go on a field trip. Put your shoes on because we’re heading outside.

Take a bowling ball and drop it on the edge of your driveway. That’s our Sun. Yeah, the ball is only eight inches across and the actual Sun is eight hundred thousand miles across but that’s our scale for this little brainwave. Okay, now walk down your street ten big paces and drop a grain of salt on your neighbor’s lawn. That’s Mercury. Take nine more paces down the street and drop a peppercorn for Venus. And then take another seven paces, so you’re now two or three houses down the block, and toss down another peppercorn.

You got it.

That peppercorn is Earth.

Here we are, basking in the blazing sun, twenty-six big steps away from the bowling ball. Our giant planet is just a tiny speck in the middle of nowhere but here’s the crazy part: It gets a whole lot bigger.

If you keep walking, Mars is only couple more houses away, but Jupiter ends up ninety-five big paces down the street, out of the neighborhood, and halfway to the corner store. By now a dog is probably slobbering in the bowling ball finger holes and kids are flying by you on their bikes, slurping drippy popsicles, and wondering what’s up with this nut tossing crumbs on the sidewalk, acting out some demented suburban version of Hansel and Gretel.

If you want to finish up our solar system, you’re going to have to start taking two- and three-hundred paces for the remaining planets, eventually dropping a grain of salt for Pluto half a mile away from the bowling ball. You can’t see the bowling ball with binoculars and it’s getting cold out for your long walk home.

But here’s the crazier part: That’s just our solar system. That’s just our bunch of rocks flying around our big bright bowling ball star.

Turns out our big bright star and all its salt and peppercorns are racing around a cosmic race track with two hundred billion other big bright bowling ball stars. You’d have to cover the entire Earth with bowling ***** eight thousand times to represent the number of stars in our race track. Did we mention this race track has a name? Yup, it’s called the Milky Way galaxy, presumably because the scientists who first noticed it were all eating delicious Milky Way candy bars late that Friday night down at the telescopes.

So basically our bowling ball, salt, and peppercorns are flying in the fast lane around a ridiculously giant race track galaxy called the Milky Way with billions and billions of other bowling *****, salt grains, and peppercorns, too.

But are you ready for the craziest part: That’s just our galaxy. Guess how many giant racetrack galaxies are in all of outer space? Oh, not many. Just more than we can possibly count. Honestly, nobody knows how many galaxies are out there in the big blackness. All we know is that every few years somebody stares out a little further and finds millions more of them just shining way out in the void. We don’t know how deep it goes because our rocket ships don’t blast off that far and our thickest, fattest telescopes can’t see that far.

Now, all this space talk might make us feel small and insignificant, but here’s the thing, here’s the big thing, here’s the biggest thing of all: Of the millions of places we’ve ever seen it appears as though Earth is the only place that can support life. The only place! Oh sure, there could be other life-giving planets we haven’t seen yet, but the point is that Earth could easily have been a clump of sulphur gas, be lying in darkness forever, or have a winter that dips a couple hundred degrees and lasts twenty years like Uranus.

On this planet Earth, the only one in the giant dark blackness where anything can live, we ended up being humans.

Congratulations, us!

We are the only species on the only life-giving rock capable of love and magic, architecture and agriculture, jewellery and democracy, aeroplanes and highway lanes. We’re the only ones with interior design and horoscope signs, fashion magazines and house party scenes, horror flicks with monsters, guitar jams at concerts. We got books, buffets and radio waves, wedding brides and roller coaster rides, clean sheets and good movie seats, bakery air and rain hair, bubble wrap and illegal naps.

We got all that. But people, listen up.

We only get a hundred years to enjoy it.

I’m sorry but it’s true.

Every single person you know will be dead in a hundred years — the foreman at your plant, the cashiers at your grocery store, every teacher you’ve ever had, anyone you’ve ever woken up beside, all the kids on your street, every baby you’ve ever held, every bride who’s walked down the aisle, every telemarketer who’s called you at dinner, every politician in every country, every actor in every movie, everyone who’s cut you off on the highway, everyone in the room you’re sitting in right now, everyone you love, and you.

Life is so great that we only get a tiny moment to enjoy everything we see. And that moment is right now. And that moment is counting down. And that moment is always, always fleeting.

You will never be as young as you are right now.

So whether you’re enjoying your first toothpicked turkey cold cuts and marveling at apples from South Africa, dreaming of strange and distant relatives from thousands of years ago, or staring into the blackness of deep, deep space, just remember how lucky we all are to be here right now.

If you feel that sense of wonder and beauty in all the tiny joys in life then you’re part of an international band of old souls and optimists, smiling on sidewalks, dancing at weddings, and flipping to the other side of the pillow. Let’s all high five and keep thinking wild thoughts, dreaming big dreams, and laughing loud laughs.

Thank you so much for reading this.

And thank you for being

AWESOME!

Listening
Living in between seperate
Dimensions of being
We used to swim In public
Pools and used to gaze at the
Spray-painted underground
Nakedness rampant under
The bridges of our city
We used to coo in creeks and
Make invitations to every
Kid in class to our birthday
Parties
We played with basketballs
Hula-hoops and Gameboy
But somewhere down this
Beaten road through adolescence
Somewhere beyond the socks
For presents on
Christmas
We became taller and hairier.
Shaped crystals from diamond
Mines
And life gave us something to
Unwind
A music box for a wandering mind
To speak our truth
To speak you're soul
Disguised as a bruised indifference
Or an overt lunacy somedays
(Seems plausible on sleepless
Nights, insomniac-like In
Cemented rooms that turn so cold
In Autumn.)
But our truth is our sanity
Which must be uttered In
Amazement
Even as some hookah caterpillar
Is blowing smoke
Trying to convince you you're
Crazy
Maybe the caterpillar is only lazy
And trying to be a marmot.

she awoke one morning to find wings upon her back
spread out across the length of her room
she had trouble getting out of the door
and every room she left and house she exited
she knocked things askew
destroyed more and more

she met a boy down-town of a similar strange sort
he was covered, every single last inch of him
in crawling, hugging spiders
his face was obscured and his tongue black
as he spoke, more came from his throat
fatter, hairier, wider

they fled together to a beach where a big bonfire sat
and around, for hundreds, in the fog, were others
others like them; outsides varied, insides same
there were some with wings too, the girl saw
but all stopped what they were doing as a sound was heard
and eyes turned toward the colossal flame

the people sat and gathered at the fire's base, close-knit
she linked arms with an old man with tears pouring from each wrinkle
and a little girl made of air
this crowd watched, enraptured for hours like moths
until the bonfire spluttered, stuttered, went to sleep
and wrote in the charcoal left: 'despair'

the boy with the spiders took her aside; his hands tickled
he bade the girl to wade out with him, into the swash
which giggled beseechingly at her toes, flecked with frost
the crowd of the beach overheard, and together they all joined
to slink into the fog and ocean depths united
to become, like the people of the night before them:
eternally lost.

Love constrained to 140 characters
Barriers
At a stand still, down hill
Pigeon carriers
Face getting hairier
Like trying to explain the pain to endangered animals
Societal cannibals
Launching cannonballs down crowded halls
No wherewithal
You've got me shook up, look up
Falling tears
Even after all these years
Shrouded on fears of falling on deaf ears
On and etch-a-sketch that never clears

sitting, lying in his bed alone
balanced perfectly in a disinterested, nonexistent relationship
composed purely of ***** calls that i make
every so often
when im in town.
we dont really talk, at most a drink,
before we start ******* in his oversized bunkbed.
we didnt even kiss when he left this morning,
leaving me naked and untouched.

usually we **** three times when i come over:
twice before going to bed, and once in the morning.
this time we ****** once.
and i know he’s busy studying,
and i know i dont care about him that way,
so why is it all gnawing at me?

it’s probably the romance-soaked pages of the books ive been devouring lately.
movies, tv shows, films
cannot really capture the inner monologue, the lingering butterflies,
the lust one can have for romance rather than ***,
but still a lust in definition.
i want something, i want to have something that i want, i want to want,
but i haven’t wanted in a long while
and i’ve forgotten what it feels like.

maybe im merely and impulsively looking for a way
to ruin what i have so beautifully constructed, piece by piece, as i turned my back on it over
and over
and over.
im only interested in the disinterested,
so maybe im looking to blow down this paper castle of fuckery i’ve built around us,
as I interlace our fingers
as he takes me from behind.

last time we ******,
he told me he was leaving for germany in september,
and he wouldnt be coming back until he had a wife.
he is four, five years my senior,
but the thought makes me uneasy and a bit nauseated.
the closest things ive had to a relationship
are intense, but fleeting, three week flings with israeli boys with beautiful eyes who can barely speak english,
and what we have, four years of ******* but maybe once each year

we first hooked up when he was my age, 21, and i just 17.
it took me a year from then to lose my virginity before i would **** him.
it took me ******* up my flight plans a few years later for it to happen again,
even though i left a girl friend’s apartment that night claiming i would not be ******* him,
unlike the last 5 guys that week.

we didnt cuddle last night, either,
like we normally do when the AC has finally cooled our sweat soaked bodies
enough to handle non-***-crazed touching.
but i guess in the end it is always and just ***,
the budding of it at least,
for every time we spoon
it results in those lil’ hip gyrations, grinding together ever so slightly, until his **** stiffens against my ***,
and eventually, i allowed it to go there,
painful and ****-less.
but the ******* inside of me was delighted,
always wanting him to rough me up a bit more,
slap me a bit harder,
choke me a bit longer...
i’ll take the pain where i can get it.

this cannot be romance.
romance does not push your head further still, after gargling its hairy *****, towards its even hairier ***.
this is not romance.
i cannot paint these white roses red
for they are not even roses.
they are far lighter and more frail than the most delicate origami,
but a breathe away from toppling down,
sustained by
neglect,
****,  
and
*******
alone
in his room after he has gone.

Stealing glances at a face so different and yet familiar,
Thought of the past and thoughts of forever,
But what does she think now, some years later,
My same face, just taller and hairier.
Her thoughts are an enigma that I shall not solve,
Unless I decide to steel my resolve,
But what of us should ever come?
If fun wrong? Well, no but hurt might be done.
And if she says no? Big deal, won't be the last relationship you blow.
Well, I think I'll hold my tongue, as she looks to go.
If only she knew what I am writing down.
Perhaps the same thought is sparking through her profound.
Oh the bite so cruel so sweet,
When an old friend I, Random, Meet.

Chimes bid farewell as the last wind to ever end,
blows its final charms through the hairs on our arms.

Walls, with bubbled fire gleeful for escape scratch-
out etches of their own cave paintings. I'll remember you.

Times hid beneath a soft surface the soul's foreign purpose,
to explore the alien that is land beyond here, a future mere.

Struck dumb, deaf, congenital heart murmurs and other gossips.
Fogged out windows bottomed at the last ends of an emptied quarry.

We dug the new digs and the careful resemblance to a rhyme we like to sing-
along to, in lieu of the high notes we contort brows and eyes high for a few.

This tumult of twenties gleam in stark contrast.
Made heavier with temptations, I forgot everything.

Finally tired of the past I find the future narrowing before my salted vision.
Too late to change course,
reef ourselves, then. The wind has harrowed a billow the last of its kind.
We are now safely where we must be, were told to go, were held and pointed
to by arms hairier than ours then, "That is your place in this world."
Carried across the sea in a pity as a great wind,
carried us, too, across the sky.

We act as rupture on this virginity.
A land with no wind is too new.
God, please, tell me what to do.
Guide me in, again.

My husband thinks he's:
a) adequate for any woman needs
b) some sort of genius in the saddle
c) God of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and France

2. If I had my way I'd have:
a) bigger jewelry coffers
b) more closet space
c) a larger cell

3. If you tell your husband you have a headache tonight, he'll probably:
a) look awkward and change the subject
b) stifle a fit of laughter
c) offer to cure it immediately

4. On your wedding night, you thought about:
a) How much smaller he was than Thomas Howard
b) How much hairier he was than Thomas Wyatt
c) How much longer you could go without inhaling

5. You prefer your hats:
a) of red velvet
b) with long plumes and a circlet of pearls
c) at least eight inches above your shoulders

6. To satisfy your husband's craving for a male heir, you would give:
a) Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
b) the blood of a hundred newborns to Satan in a silver chalice
c) listen I'm number six and he can bite me