“Put your heart in the drawer and starve the bitch”

“Take the heart out and love everything, even the bugs”

Her smile walked in and he thought of another smile from twenty years before when he knew who she was, the one that got away when he was young, maybe 21. Sipping his coffee he realized it all was a ghostly reminder of non-existence. He saw the liquid movement of the next smile and remembered the day in the park when the birds yelled so loud purple appeared, like watching birth again. Uplifted by recent months, he ordered a chocolate chip cookie and watched heavy men load shipping material in the back of semi-trucks outside the window of the coffee shop, where he was listening to professional writers interview each other for a poetry podcast. There was a local artist he had seen around town for years sitting a few chairs over, but it never felt right to say hello… then he thought, “that’s just how it is here in the old city”. As he sat by the window the rain poured down for hours, his hands typing away, his thoughts free from corrosive narratives and useless characters he’d long forgotten. It was by all interpretation the moment when he was gone and freed.

The awakening of self brings a wealth of momentary glass that shatters around the head, then falls to the ground. You will look at these pieces sticking to you.

“Don’t look at the pieces”

“Look at them and conquer them”

“Eat an egg and shut the frick up about it”

You will ask the questions and hide your inner self behind the public persona to evade what ever it is haunting you. It will hold on like an invasive species…So go for a walk to shake it off? Or lets have a conversation with a new face, once again going out into the world as an individual touching another while trauma boils in the veins.

“Sex isn’t serious, right?”

“Lets go dance and find out”

“I should have gotten in the car with those two chicks man”

“You didn’t?”

“That was stupid”

“I want to be bigger than just one sex act”

“Dude, you think too much”

“Yeah, do you think it’ll kill me?”

“Oh, for sure”

“Its not about this or that, it’s the whole you see?”

“Ah, I see, I get it now”

“No you don’t”

‘Thank you for saying that”

“Your welcome G”

“Oh, and I was lying before… I did get in the car”

“Good Job!”

If we are to live then we should invest in crazy to test the boundaries of this box, in every direction. Some of us are actually “crazy” and for that I get to hear weeping voices breathing heavy in the dark when the phone rings.

“Triggered, a boat in an ocean that’s empty”

“You can’t save anyone”

“Well, I can give them a map?”

“They are directionally challenged”

“Oh”

A simple search online will give you a vast amount of information on how to deal with yourself in the tough spots. How do you do it?

“Join in on the new hashtag movements”

“Go get drunk with friends”

“Don’t get drunk at all”

“Learn a new skill”

“Carpentry 101 has a vacancy this month”

“Plant a tree”

“Don’t plant anything right now its cold outside”

“I thought we could plant things in cold things?”

“Have you heard the new gang starr album?”

“Whose that?”

“What!?”

Go here, go there, eat and don’t eat. Get active or don’t. You’re going to feel it all no matter what you do. Feel it, soak it in, breath words into new words you’ve never said before.

“You happy?”

“Well, I was until you asked me, now I’m thinking ‘am I happy?’ so no longer can I be happy because I’m thinking about it, thanks”

“Can I ask you for year how you are feeling every morning?”

“Sure, that sounds like the gem of all plans there buddy”

The tools that break down the remnants (ghosts) are found in creativity. This isn’t for material ways though, its how you walk, how you turn up the core of yourself everywhere you are and you get so comfortable that you forget to think about anything else. Pick up the broken wings and glue them to your rib cage…they are emotional children and they need you. Honor them, they are teaching you, arming you so you’re ready for the next thing. That sounds pretty good actually.

“You don’t have to think about it”

“They don’t deserve anything from you”

“Ok, lets go to the movies”

“I’m too alive for movies”

We all hold power and we give it away sometimes. What we learn is even the strongest powers cannot be used if the place it’s channeled is not the canvas to which it was intended – jobs, people, art, any of it. You know when it doesn’t fit, the point in our ability to grow is how well we listen to ourselves. To accept ourselves we become closer to a higher state of existence or consciousness. The reveals in any painful experience are  required in order to reach all the heights of Joy. You cannot escape either reality.

“If you yell into a canyon and there is no echo, then this is no canyon.”

“Forward it goes into the great still surrounded by the endless avenues of possibility.”

In the dark the dance faded beyond any reachable memory. The pages turned from a book he purchased yesterday at his favorite used book store, the nightly intake was clean, naturally pure without stimulants, well… he’d smoke another cigarette. Resting in the motionless space he fell asleep as the door behind him closed and the voices haunting him no longer could penetrate his new forming shields of power. Silent he was alone to himself – silent the world was new. Flicker little light, flicker…flicker….and the roaring traffic outside the sliding glass door carried sound miles away. The highways of privilege and fitting ends for new beginnings.

“I will write until my eyes are no longer”

“Then you will hear everything”