What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Category: Short Stories (Page 29 of 46)

The Idea of You

I have fallen for you

This idea…

This incessant demand of my soul

To follow the twisted paths and fractured roads

That twist my ankles and cause my weary feet to blister

Just to catch a glimpse of you, my Beloved.

 

I can only do what my heart beckons me to do. I’ve long given up the fight with it. The demands of battles waged between my heart and mind take too great a toll. I’ve long surrendered to the inhuman voice within me, a voice that sometimes has to drag me, kicking and screaming, while at other times has to struggle to keep up with feet bent on taking me somewhere.

Where once I had to think, to demand reason of the unreasonable, to seek the indescribable answers with describable questions, I now surrender. The once befuddled mental spreadsheets and flowcharts that bound me to the Earth have given way to a sense of freedom that allows my sturdy wings to unfurl and catch the winds of life, embraced in unfettered destiny.

I allow those winds to capture me, to take me high above the clouds; to plummet me through the dense underbrush of life thicketed with my own insanity. I allow them to pick up my bloodied corpse to fly toward new fields of destiny, toward unknown stories of welcome and woe, to write a new chapter and verse in this life, to fill the pages still left blank in a heart overflowing with this idea.

The idea of you.

I hear you in the winds of change

Howling at me…

Reminding me of my own instability

Preaching a virtue foreign to my mother’s ears

Reminding me of my father’s own insecurity

It sings…and sings…relentlessly battering me with its hopeless tune.

 

The discourse of surrender can be such a fearful dialog to the unwise mind. Since the moment of our birth we are taught to fight, and to fight hard. Soon, we lose sight of what “fight” means, and we discover a value in the struggle. Then, everything becomes a fight, a struggle, until we have nothing left to identify with outside of it. We become vessels of drama.

Yet I sit in impassioned stillness, longing for the facade to dissolve. I long for the steeled silence to replace the battered illusion; for the peaceful space to replace the dramatic game. I long for it to become easy, like breathing in a spring day. I search for it to become as effortless as sunrise, and equally as meaningful.

Yet, I am only human. I am just a man. This is, of course, more folly from my ancestors, a continued denying of my implicit truth. Even the blue skies lie, and beneath them I forget the limitless bounds that rise above me. I can lay in a lie bestowed upon me by others for only so long until, one day, I need something so much different, and I begin to change.

Change it seems, can be a whip used to beat me or a rope I use to climb. The choice I make, is mine.

Lover, hear me whisper

I’ll hum you a lullaby.

I’ll caress your face with undoubting hands

Hold you firm against the tide

Share the board on which we’ll ride

Until tomorrow, we have today.

 

Which is the right way to love you? Which is the right road to choose until we sit, illuminated by a raging fire, nestled closely against each other? Which path should the beads of sweat born against our skin take to form the puddle we will share? Who are they to tell us? Tell me, which lion born forgives itself for pretending to be a zebra? Which drop of rain flies upward in some vain attempt to kiss the very face of our raging Sun?

Who am I to deny the very life we were born to share?

I relinquish my control while being embraced firmly to the roots that hold me to this place. I search for the sea and the highest peaks on which to make our holy altar. My body screams your name and my heart…well, my heart…it simply beats praying for that one moment when yours has becomes its echo.

I have simply given in to…

This idea of you.

One day this moment will be gone

Nothing but a distant memory, an over-told story.

We’ll be two old crows silently squawking in some corner of a room.

But my, how we will have loved,

How we will have loved and loved and loved,

The truth be told in the glances we share,

In the smiles our eyes betray upon our knowing lips,

In the way our wrinkled hands fit nicely,

In the way my shoulder bends to the touch of your head,

The way my aged arm fits perfectly around your longing waist.

 

One day today will be but history,

And we reborn into nothing but a vision of two aged fools.

But, my love, what a tale we could tell!

The countless nights in eternal ecstasy,

That ocean of love that bestowed us an infinite number of waves,

Too many to count, but we were too busy anyway.

I’ll long to hear those words you had first spoken so very long ago,

Words that had never aged from the first moment you gave them life.

“I love you…”

 

With those word gave birth a new universe

Where two aged fools in love could sit

And say nothing while saying all that need be said.

Where the space that we have shared a million nights before

We share but for one last breath

And close our eyes for one last time.

We’d have but one regret,

That we had not one more to share.

 

Love has little to do with ending. That is the folly of the mind. Yet all stories must end, even if there are sequels to be had. The idea of surrender takes me to a place that we share, a place where love basks in the imperfect and glows lovingly on the humanity that gives it life. When i think of you I think of such things. Perfect imperfection. Beauty. The truth of incredible strength as two souls trudged through the muck and the mud created by stories of old toward the beaches and peaks of their own creation. The stories of how pain and failure gave way to happiness and success; how struggle and limitation surrendered to acceptance and love.

That story never does get old, does it? Somewhere in the deep crevices of who we are our hearts beg to write it as our minds plead to read it. Yet there I am, alone at my writing place blocked by the empty air around me and the buzz of longing in my ears. No light can shed this darkness and no thing can fill this emptiness.

Until…

I have this idea. This idea of you. Suddenly life springs into my fingers and it all comes together. That’s all it takes, a simple, complicated idea of you. A thought. A glance. And then a smile.

What a life it will be.

And So I Walk

Lone walkerAnd so I walk…

I’ve closed my eyes and felt your hand on my shoulder, and opened them to find you gone. I’ve touched my blinded hands to the air and found your fingers upon my own, and with sight restored I’ve only found the open sky gazing back at me. I’ve dreamed of you a million times, only to find myself alone – beautifully alone – when the dawn begs my eyes to open.

I do not question those lonely footprints in the sand. I do not question the solitude when it comes. I realize all is well, all is perfect. What better place for a loner to be than alone, what more perfect view does a man have when unobstructed by the cautious, insane birds that fly away at the sound of the rushing surf?

There is no better place to be for this Warrior. The waves shall bring her to his beach, a sturdy hand to hold his own, a strong companion who together study the clouds from above and survey the deepest valleys from below. They will sing a song in unison, undaunted by the winds of change, unimpeded by the storms of emotional disillusionment, eternal beyond the wounds that life has given.

And so I walk. I walk and I walk and I do not stop save the rests necessary to keep my natural gait. Not questioning, not demanding, just walking. The sword I carry is as wide as my arms and only as potent as my embrace. My muscles are no longer tense for the fight, but for the not-so-silent moments of ecstatic surrender, the gift of divine exploration as two bodies melt into one sea. To you I will someday raise my white flag, and one day I will not fight with you at my back, but rather love with you in my arms.

And to this end we walk, and to this end we wander aimfully through the passages of our time together.

My Muse, An Introduction

the museNow, it seems, is time to introduce you to my muse.

Rather than do this in what would seem to be easy fashion, I’d like to do it the way my heart tells me to, using the methods by which the Universe speaks through me. Please meet her as my heart speaks in the written word.

See, a picture would be too two-dimensional, a handshake too cordial, a video too incomplete. I’d rather introduce you to this gift in the way most of you were introduced to me. So, here goes.

Imagine for one moment you are thirsty and you are wondering through a scorching desert looking for something to drink. Everywhere you look there are pitted stones, dying trees, and the bones of dead memories strewn about in some chaotic fashion. Some of these you put in your mouth, only to be repulsed by bitterness. Others you don’t even get near, the stench is just too much for you to take. So you continue to search, to imagine what it would be like to find that one drink of water. You never give up hope.

Then, suddenly, you come upon a clear, cool spring in a lush oasis. You bend your knee to drink, that first heavenly gulp saving you as each swallow afterward reminds you not only of the thirst that nearly killed you, but of the wonderfulness of the Universe that brought you here. You take long, mindful drinks from that pond, and relax patiently on the plush grasses provided while enjoying the fruits of that place.

You  are sure you will never leave. There is nothing out there for you, and everything you have ever wanted is right here. So, you give thanks, you care for that space, and you rest in a certainty that you are, and always have been, right where you belong.

That’s my muse. I’m glad you have had the opportunity to meet her.

Now walk with me. The Sun is blistering hot, and the sky offers no respite from its assault. You walk onward, the sweat dripping from your skin like tired stories of a slow demise. Each step gets harder than the last, but onward you march until…

..finally…

…. a large tree rises from above the unforgiving sands. You sit under her, enjoying the cool comfort as you are refreshed from your journey. She dries the sweat from your skin, cools the burning rage in your heart, and steels you for the effort that still lay ahead; all while assuring you that you can always return to her, without ever wondering where she’s been.

That’s my muse. Please shake her hand, and give her your utmost respect. She deserves nothing less.

Now sail with me on my Ocean. The seas are rough, the storm mighty as the ship tosses roughly around while the gods argue your very existence. You are battered against the wooden frame, bruised against the solid mast until, finally, you are tossed overboard into the murky mayhem that quickly surrounds you and drags you down…

…down…

…down.

The last thing you remember is your impending demise. The last thing you see is a vast, bottomless cauldron of darkness. You finally surrender to your doom.

You awaken on a soft, sandy shore, the Sun warming you, the light breeze sending chills up your entire being. You gasp as you remember your breath, and you inhale deeply as if you were newly born. You sigh as you embrace the earth around you, and you cry as a testament not only to where you are, but where you have come from.

There, right there, is my muse. I don’t possess her any more than I could possess the air around me, but I certainly utter lovely prayers of gratitude with each passing breath. “I love you,” I say. “Breathe,” she replies. I love you too.

Now that you have met her, love her as you do while I love her as I do. Know her through the air that you breathe, the water than quenches your thirst, the earth that gives you a safe place to stand after nearly drowning in the Sea. Be tender with her as she is tender with you, and give her your full attention. Do not question the Sunrise and Sunset, but give thanks for the experience of her absence by truly appreciating her presence.

She is my muse, and with each word you find value in thank her with all your heart.

Love.

Maybe I’ve Always Had It Wrong

I’ve been reflecting on myself today, as reflected by a myriad of others who provide me with some context.

<Inhale>

I’ve been blessed, although I am sure in a way most would not consider a “blessing.” Yet, I have been as I see it, in the most beautifully painful and complete way possible. There are no blessings and curses in my life, only blessings, and I accept them completely.

There is a tremendous amount of love in the depths I’ve been driven to explore. Ever since I was a young boy, I’ve sought out meaning to each experience, often reliving the “negative” experience over and over again until, finally, the meaning was discovered. Often I’d use “positive” experiences as a contrast in order to discover things I would have never seen otherwise.

Ironically, many things I once thought of as “positive” are no longer so, and those I considered “negative” have changed to wonderful positives. The mind-world connection is amazing; once you change your mind your world changes, and as your world changes so does your mind.

It’s why I don’t consider love in the way most do. I don’t see it as a positive or a negative, but rather the canvas by which both are painted. It doesn’t change, only our minds do. Instead, it remains constant and accepting of that wonderful vehicle of mind/ego. Love and ego work together to expose the truth…a constant that only changes when we do. Love is truly like water…it takes any form you place it in.

Enjoy the metamorphosis, and the evolution. You will see others who are beginning to become aware of this journey, and you will smile as they protest, as they shout out all of their good intentions. You will take joy, and some pain, in the distortions they try to hold onto, and you will always offer a helping hand, in your own unique way. And you will recognize those hands offered to you, even if they weren’t fully aware they were extended.

Acceptance is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to acceptance. Tolerance is not the key to peace, peace is the key to tolerance. Gratefulness is not the key to love, love is the key to gratefulness.

And maybe, just maybe, the Bodhi tree was not the path to enlightenment, enlightenment was the path to the Bodhi tree. Perhaps the cross was not the path to salvation, but salvation the path to the cross. Perhaps you were not the means to love, but love was the means to you.

<Exhale>

Please, Touch Me (Excerpt)

I feel alone as I stretch toward the empty spaces in my life, the voids giving me room to move, room to know myself. Suddenly, I feel you there.

I love the way you feel. I beg you…Please touch me.

There is something about the wave of pleasure that cascades through me as your lips press against mine. I love the way you feel, the way you help me feel, the sheer pleasure of it all.

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I Long for Winter

Silence.

What is wrong with basking in the silence?

What is wrong with the aloneness of nothing’s sound? Where is the error within this isolation? Within the miracle of those spaces caught between the notes, within the sweet sound of creation stuck within the cracks of what we see as destruction?

From somewhere comes a sigh. From outward poses of false realities come awkward words of truthful fantasies.

I walk along trying to find the mindless footprints I’ve cast in the hardened bedrock of my life; wondering why some fear the sturdiness of this place, why they search for escape by looking for the invisible tracks they swear they left behind.

I question, they don’t respond.

They react.

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What Absolutely Beautiful Ugliness I Am

被遺棄的商場 Abandoned shopping mall / 中國海南三亞 Sanya, Hainan, China / SML.20140506.6D.32068.P1.BWHow could I feel melancholy?

I lay here, alone in my bed, the sounds of nature coming in through my open bedroom windows, wondering about such things.

My life is so beautiful. I have the love of three children, and the tender smiles and life-altering dramas of my little ones to grace my days. I have physically moved into a great space, with the harmonies of nature singing me to peace, and a cool breeze lightly filling the space where shortly I will fall to sleep.

I have beautiful people in my life. I have friends who mean so much to me even if I never quite find the right ways of expressing that great fortune. It isn’t that I don’t care. It’s just the opposite. I love them with all of my heart, and they are in many thoughts and deeds during my day. No, it’s not a lack of emotional love that keeps me silent.

Sometimes I just feel as if I need the distance. Not physically. Emotionally. I feel that I can love them best by not needing them, by not having them need me. I feel that I can do my thing in a way that allows them to do their thing, and that I best fly when not feeling constrained. See, I tend to crash into walls. And walls hurt.

I know, that the idea that pain is impending is an assumption, and making assumptions violates my own agreement. Yet at some point in life one must wonder where assumption-making ends and experience takes over. No, not every shard of glass is sharp, but experience tells me that if I walk on shards of glass I will end up cut and bleeding. I have the scars to prove it, and frankly I have no great desire to need more stitching.

More analogies and metaphors rush into my head like waves of a stormy sea. So far I’ve crashed into figurative walls and walked on ideological shards of glass while soaking in tsunami after tsunami of frothy, wind-swept ocean water. I’ve

I’ve hurt those I love the most, loved those who have hurt me terribly, and lived in the shadow of death.

heard echoes about my footsteps in the sand, how I was carried by some savior whose name I can’t remember out beyond some horizon I never seem to stand upon. I’ve cursed some saints and loved some sinners while not quite understanding the meaning to even my own questions. I’ve hated and loved, and pushed away some things I certainly should have held on to. I chuckle at the irony of it all.

I’ve choked on the very ocean water I love so much. I’ve become ill listening to my fears, and I’ve honored those fears as the very things that I’ve used as footholds on my trip to the summit of this life. I’ve been burnt by the fires that have warmed me, and I’ve grown blind in the very light I’ve used to light my way. I’ve hurt those I love the most, loved those who have hurt me terribly, and lived in the shadow of death. I’ve grown afraid of not knowing fear, and I’ve discovered that I find my truth when facing the monsters I’ve long held captive in the closets of mind. I’ve argued with others, but no more than I have argued with myself, with the voices implanted in me from birth often arguing with the voices implanted in me before birth. I’ve traveled enough in my own universe to know that there is no such thing as empty space, and I’ve heard the chorus sing through one, unified voice urging me onward even in the most wonderful moments of stillness.

Then there is that one voice I hear. The bastard macho fuck that won’t shut up until he gets his way. I know him well, and I fight him hard.

No, motherfucker, I won’t stop whining and I won’t stop complaining. I won’t “man up”, whatever the fuck that means. I won’t stop, and yes, I’ll let my panties get into a bunch. I’m sick of your rules too, and I plan to break every one of them until I am done here. In our time together you’ve kicked my ass and I’ve kicked yours to equal measure.

I’m not sure either of us has ever truly won anything in the process, although I’m pretty sure we’ve both loss plenty. We’re stupid that way.

Yet, I’ve met some beautiful people along the way. People who accept me even in the distance, people who feel close even when my heart is dancing among those stars neither of us can really see. I walk through the crowded room where I’ve put those memories and I smile broadly when saying “hello” to each of them. I remember the hugs, the kisses, the stories, the conversations. “I love you,” I say to each of them. They respond, “I know you do.”

I’ve seen some beautiful places while playing here. I’ve been fortunate to see so much in this journey, and to find the hidden caves of this place I could always call home if given the chance. I’ve seen flat land, my beloved high peaks, and the sandy ocean waters I now call home. I’ve gotten wet in viscous southern storms, kissed the snows of high altitude, and dove deep in the clearest seas I have ever bathed in. I’ve flown high above the clouds and felt the pressure of the deep, and I’ve floated on the surface of things when the people I love were floating there, too. I’ve had wealth, lost plenty, and felt the most loneliness a man could ever feel. I’ve been blessed with what my mind calls the “good” and the “bad”, and I’ve come through the day to see the night and then lived to see the sun rise again.

Yeah, I’m blessed. I’ve learned how to stand up on my own two feet without the crutches I’ve been told I’d need. I’ve learned that sometimes I have to crawl, even through the mud. I’ve learned that even the tone-deaf can find the right note from time to time. I’ve learned that I can make my kids laugh until their sides hurt. I’ve also learned that sometimes that is all we need; to laugh until our sides hurt. I’ve learned that thinking, acting, and being just like a kid is sometimes the cure for what ails me. I’ve learned that I love being alone because I love the company I keep there, and I’ve also learned that sometimes there is nothing like a great hug, a tender kiss, or that something more that highlights just how wonderful some people can be.

I guess when I look back I realize that the weatherman doesn’t always need to be right, and that sometimes it is just perfect to get soaked to the bone when science says the sun should be shining. Sometimes it is nice to be the only one on the beach because the experts have said it would be raining cats and dogs. Sometimes it is wonderful to just be wrong, to make that one mistake that sets your life on fire. It is especially wonderful when you realize that you already hold the tools necessary to put that fire out, yet you just sit and watch it burn for a while.

One day I will be done here. Then, I’ll be grateful for that one late night I spent writing about the idiosyncrasies of this experience.

I’ll be grateful for those wanderers who find value in these words I’ve thrown together, who seek out their own recipe even in the cookbooks found in other homes, on other shelves, written by other chefs, yet who invariably end up cooking the meal the way they want to with ingredients of their own choosing. I’ll be grateful for the loss that made room for so much gain, for the pain that exposed the pleasure, for the night that showed me the grandeur of each and every day.

After all, what is the good without the bad? It is, frankly, my horns that hold my halo in place. Or, perhaps, it is my halo that makes my horns just so fucking delicious. Hhhhhmmm, I’ll have to ponder that one for a while.

The Asshole Look

This is a fish.I just had an experience with an asshole giving me a “look”. Now, in the “old days” that look might have rendered him a bloody, probably incoherent mess on the floor, or at the very least he would have gotten a verbal ass whooping that would have left him stuttering and stammering like a fool. My hands would have been sore, and I’d be making calls for bail money, and I’d feel horrible about my lack of control, but that would have been the outcome.

I would have heard the voices in my head that would have told me I was not strong enough, tough enough, or worthy enough to be superior to this person. I would have reacted violently in order to prove them wrong, and that reaction would ALWAYS lead to other voices telling me I was not strong enough, tough enough, or worthy enough to be my sincere, loving, compassionate self. The first set of voices belonged to other people, the second set were mine.

My choice is ALWAYS, “which voices are the one you wish to listen to?”

While I do get angry when pretenders scratch the surface of my insecurity, I realize that the reaction is truly my own that has nothing to do with them. That reaction leads ME into fantasy; fantasy that suggests I am something different from who I am, fantasy that causes me to create outcomes that are contrary to the person I am, fantasy where I listen to voices not my own.

I am grateful for the physical strength I have been given, but I’m more grateful for the mental and physical strength I have developed. That’s the value I find in the past. The past is, for me, like some long-forgotten workout that helped make me a little bit stronger today than I would have been without it. I value it in the place it has gotten me, but for little else. The real value is in the exercise of Now, the boundaries I am pushing in the asanas I am trying in the present tense of my current state of being.

This experience, too, will only serve to get me to another. It has no other value except in where I am and where I am going. I can assign certain values in it if I choose. I can create importance in it if I so desire, but those choices, too, are for me and only me to make. Things become important, moments gain value, only in the minds of the people who have them. Beyond that, they are nothing more than vehicles to another moment, another time, another choice.

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