Of all time...

Tomorrow I won't be here

Don't look for me

I am deathly afraid 

Of being stuck

In the past

The past is all I know

I have a great memory

And greater memories

Of when everything was vibrant

And full of hope

The future

It used to be a cherished prize

What more wonders might unfold

With unexpected happiness

And sadness filled with lessons

Tomorrow I won't be here

Don't look for me

I will panic and look for lovers

And more lovers

Instead of love

Past lovers are all I know

I have a poor memory

And so, poor memories

Of how they hurt me

And how I hurt them

The future looks grim

It has turned into an obligation

What time is left for wonders

When happiness eludes

And sadness comes with no lesson

...

Today I am here

You keep looking for me

But I am not good for you

I took our happiness

And turned it to sadness

You think these words help me

But they destroy me

Sudden realizations

That what I want

Is less than what you want

The present is filled with guilt

Would you have been happier

If I never gave it a try

If we never met at all

Would you know that you are worthy

Today I am here

You keep looking for me

Because yours is a determined love

You wish only for our combined happiness

But defiantly reject our individual sadness

You think I speak from above

But below is where I dwell

I keep trying something new

Because the way I used to love

Has failed me numerous times

The present is filled with anguish

Would I have been happier

Alone this entire year

Instead of trying each time

To find some love

...

Yesterday I was here

Looking for a way out

Because I hate hurting you

You worked so hard to make me happy 

I think because you knew I was sad

My heart can be manipulated

I want to believe that someone wants me

I felt overcome with obligation

Upholding your love so strong

With my weakened conviction

My past has taught me

That love is permanent

But relationships are temporary

And not in my control

Even when I'm in control

Yesterday I was here

Looking for a way in

Because I hate seeing you hurt

I tried so hard to make you smile in the face of waves

Not knowing you would have to face mine

My heart hates being manipulated

I want to believe that it was me 

That you love, and not your life

That needs changing, because I can't

Hold your hand and teach you to swim

Our past has taught me

That love is clear

But desire is misleading

You can be running away

Even when you try to run towards

...  ...

Forever I am grateful for the love we shared  

It was love that we shared, in the face of desires  

I'm sorry that this ended before you could smile at its worth  

I'm sorry this ended before I could embrace its worth

Please stay open, and share with the world what you have inside

Six

The walls were grey. The street was grey. The sky was grey. Our suits were grey. Our shirts were white and pressed which only emphasized the grey. Grey is the only colour that can make white sad. Grey makes you scream for colour, real colour, not just brightness. We were all at lunch, standing. There is no tike during the day for savouring, and who would want to savour this?   I realized right there that I had made the wrong choice. My life was meaningless. I was in a tunnel, where the only purpose was to get from point A to point be.  That's why there was no colour, and no time to stop.  I had entered the cycle that never stops. It was too late to find passion life love art and ecstacy. I was a broker. Life is short, too short for second chances. I won't make it to dinner, I'll die before night falls. Unless I run, now!  Unless I run so fast and so far that I never see the core ever again.

I woke up, sweating a heavy but cool unscented sweat that only a child of age six could mustre. That's when I decided to cheat death. That's when I decided to search for more.

I'm sorry six year old me.

Space and Time

Space and time are linked as a fabric.  There is no space wothout time; there is no time without space - even as a gift.  There is no giving space without giving it some time; there is no giving time without giving space.

I need to give both. I thought it was me who needed this gift, so I asked others for it. It's a gift I needed to give myself.  Sorting through emails I realize that I have been in perpetual romantic sadness for 6 years now.  I have not grown. I did then what I do now. I send corrective emails, though not as long. I get angry at anything that makes me feel like a commodity for her happiness, though not as angry.  I get lonely and dependent on the next thing, without knowing anymore what that is.

I want none of you, I want all of you.  I want you all to pamper me, even though I am not a victim.  I want you all to leave me alone, even though you're the only people who tell me you love me.  If I die tomorrow, or anytime really so long as I don't get alzheimers, I'll look back on this time and remember that I pushed away everyone who told me they loved me.  Today I can justify: Not right timing, not enough love, too much, doesn't feel right, I'm smothering her, she's manipulating me, and so on.  But sometime tomorrow when this has finally become a memory and not my reality, there will be no refuge.  I will have lost touch with those who love me. I asked them to look at me through the glass. The ones who I loved first I want a glass between us so they can one day see me happy and know that it wasn't because of them.  The ones who loved me first I want a glass between us so I don't hurt them with my experiments.

The truth is I'm still experimenting, still not sure if I really know what love is. I used to think of love as something that you just want to feel.  Now love seems.like something I should feel. I should feel it when I spend years chasing her, I should feel it when she tells me she feels it, I should feel it when we're together, I should stop feeling it when we're not. Or maybe I should keep feeling it if it really is love 'cause if I don't then it mever really was.  So love can change her appearance, hop in and out of my reality, maybe even leave me for years. I shouldn't force love, it should just happen, they say when I'm trying for it.  Love doesn't just happen, you've got to fight for it, they say when I let it pass.  I'm never right about love.

I am not a victim of love, none of us are. Love isn't punishment even when it feels like it.  I'm not a true non-believer of love, I want with my every fibre to wake up one day and without even having to roll over, to say I'm in love.  That has not been the case, for years.  I've woken up wondering, Is this love?  I've woken up and rolled over to ask, Am I in love or is this just an illusion?  I've woken up wondering, will this feel like love? Will she love me more or less? Will I, so that this feels even? Is love even? Or is there a reason why it always feels odd?

I have all these questions for love and yet I have no questions for unicorns. They might both be the same fable: the mystical entity that women yearn for from the earliest age that also congures good from the hearts of man when he is brave enough to ride. But maybe women grow up to realize it's not really true, and that love is just a device that can be used to conjure favours, guilt, obligation and security. What else is love good for, among you women?  When else do you offer up your precious four letters but to secure these promises? Maybe men grow up to find out that love is a unicorn without a saddle, a painful experience to ride, and grabbing it by the horn is a mistake because once you do it disappears. But I've forgotten, all men are dogs and women have the short end of the stick when it comes to wielding love. I forget that I have hurt every woman who has loved me, and I do not feel pain. I forget that no woman has ever been attracted to my vulnerability or feared my strength. I forget that love is a choice a woman allows herself to make and a promise a man should uphold.  I forget what every woman in the last 6 years has pointed out to me, I don't know what real love is.

They're right. Hands to the sky I have no clue. For the ladt 6 years I've been searching for somehing I don't even recognize. In fact I've done it again.  I do it all the time. Somebody loves me and I love that somebody but I can't make it work. I can't let it work. I realize now that I don't want it to work.  I never wanted love to work.

Each time when things felt complicated I ended it. There is no fight for love because I don't believe in it enough to shed blood. Nobody can promise me that love is a place where I can settle.

Love has not felt like a destination, it has felt like a voyage, one that I'm still on.  Every now and then I find a port, and I ask out loud if this is where love is.  They tell me yes, and so I stay a bit, until either they tell me know.or I find out for myself.  I've been stopping at so many ports that I don't even know where I'm sailing to anymore. 

Love is not a voyage, this isn't an exercise in poetry. It is a destination. You arrive there and everything is perfect. You feel perfect when you are there because that place is perfect for you. There are no winds, you can let down the masts. There are no waves, you need not anchor. Every direction is the right one, you need not steer.  I have not arrived there, I have just wanted to.

Hearts are broken, either theirs or mine. I never leave without a fight though, so I will break their hearts regardless.  There isn't a woman alive who has said 'I love you' to me who doesn't now feel that her life is better without me.  And when they allow themselves to want more from me, to remember those smiles we shared, I remind them of our frowns.

I piece them all together because they are all the same. They all dared to love a man who is more obsessed with love than them. I don't believe in them any more than I believe in love. I don't believe them because what they want is what they want.  They wanted it before they met me. They wanted it when they met me. They say it's me that they want, and that's when I stop believing. They've never met anyone like me, they don't know what they're talking about, and so on.  How could they love me when I'm not even done getting better.  They want my jokes, my attention, my kindness, my caring - but they don't believe in this quest that I'm on.  They have no doubt that I'll get there, they doubt even less than I do in my success, but it is not where they want to go.  They don't want to follow me there to those dark corners, they just want me to take them somewhere, away from here.  Thanks for the lift, they shout back.  So I am weary, weary when they are aboard my ship.  For how long will you stay? Where are you steering? This is not where we ought to go.   Shipwreck.

This is all very convoluted, as it should be trying to explain 5 failed relationships with 1 analogy.  This will only incite anger and resentment, because nobody wants to be made into an anecdote, no less a grouped one.  But resentment is like debt; eventuslly you incur so much of it that you don't even know the difference anymore.   I know for damn sure I can't make anyone else happy, neither when I try or give up. I'm not a victim of love or women, I'm the bad guy, remember?  I'm the guy who has only questions and no answers about love, about anything.  I don't know what love is, all I know is I'm going to make a bunch of attempts at answering what it is before I look for it again.  I don't know if the answer is in my head, but it's a safer place to ask.

Life of Piscine

I'm stranded at sea and none of you can come to my rescue. You can't rescue me because you already tried.  You saw me there, broken, not knowing what the problem was, but maybe you were the solution.  I thought you were. I didn't realize that being stranded was the solution. This is for each of you. This is for every I love you that I grabbed hold of only to pull you down with my panic. When you're drowning the key thing is to remain calm so that you can actually be saved, but I pull and push with vigour and fury.

So I should drown. I should stay out here in this sea to find the calm deep blue I keep idolizing. I am on my voyage after all, as I keep telling myself. Well as a voyage on, know this, know what it is I'm hoping to find.  Nothing. I hope to find nothing. God willing I hope to finally find nothing.  Room, space, an empty cup. They all mean the same thing. I need to create.  I am pregnant with something different than love, so my creation will not be what is wanted. But I gotta get this shit out of me and into the streets.

Fables (excerpt)

...

"Sensai, what are emotions?"  asked the pupil.

Without a moment's pause Sensai replied, "Go ask the dog!"

The pupil was an earnest learner and asked his master, "How should I ask the dog about emotion?"

Sensai replied, "Exactly as you would ask me."

Student went back to his study, unconvinced but willing.

Shortly after he made his way to the yard.  There, the dog was chewing on an extremely large bone.

Student walked behind the dog, standing over him from behind watching him gnaw away.  He asked, "Dog, what do you know of emotions?"

The dog did not respond, not even a flinch.

Student repeated less patiently, "Dog, tell me what are your fine thoughts on emotions?"

Dog looked back at him and growled and then continued gnawing.

Student sunk in his stance, defeated, and returned to his master.

"Sensai, I asked the dog about emotions and he had nothing to to tell me," he exclaimed.

"Has the dog died?" Sensai asked.

"No, he was a live and eating his bone." Student replied.

"Then surely there was a response," Sensai asserted, resuming his writing.

"No, he simply growled," Student replied.

"Then you didn't ask him properly," Sensai confirmed, not even lifting his head this time.

"I did, I asked him plainly with simply words, honestly wanting to know." said Student.

Sensai slammed his pen against his pad.  "No you did not!  I know my dog so I know how you asked him.  My dog eats his bone in the back of the yard.  You approached my dog from the rear, not asking for his attention but demanding it.  Then you asked him a question, no doubt while he was chewing, expecting him to speak to you while chewing.  When have you seen me show such little etiquette?  Then you likely repeated your question plainly, still as he ate, assuming from his silence that he was lacking in knowledge of such things.  Is this how you feel about me?  When you ask me questions, are you merely testing me? Do you feel I am unworthy of your questions?"

Student sunk his head, not knowing now what to say.

Sensai picked up his pen again.  Began to write.  After a few sentences he said softly, "Go now, and ask my dog your questions as you would ask me. Tonight you will clean the bathrooms."

Student agreed and thanked his master for a second chance.

Student approached the yard again later once he knew the dog had finished eating.

Dog was resting now beneath a tree.  Student walked towards him politely and sat down before him, waiting.   Dog then rose to his feet when he was satisfied. 

Student asked him humbly, "Dog, what are emotions?"

Dog walked up to student and said, "I do things, you see me and say happy words to me, I do those things again.  I do other things, you see me and say angry words to me, I don't do those things anymore."

Student thought about what Dog said and replied, "So you are saying that emotions are a tool that you use to get what you want from me?"

Dog laughed. "You are confused, Student.  You confuse your emotions for mine.  The things I do are what dogs do, that is my dog nature.  The things you say are what you say, that is your human nature.  If you were not here, I would still have my dog nature.  If I were not here, you would still have your human nature."

Dog paused for student to understand and then said, "Whether I am here or not, your words are either pregnant with joy or sorrow.  Emotions are the chosen delivery of a nature already conceived - a nature conceived by either joyous or sorrowful living."

Student thought more about what Dog had said and asked, "But don't you have emotions as well?  Aren't you affected by my words of joy and sorrow?"

Dog smiled, knowing Student had at least understood the basics.  He said plainly, "It is my choice to either feel happy or angry about your human nature, just as it is your choice to either feel happy or angry about my dog nature."

Student understood the message and stood up to leave.  He bowed towards Dog, and dog sat down, wagging his tail still with a smile. 

Student then said, "Dog, I am sorry that I disrupted you while eating earlier."

Dog licked himself and continued sitting, staring blankly.

Student understood and smiled.

A to Z from J

A. A Ruby

In the earliest dawn two lovers awoke
And sipping some water she said,
"Who do you love more,
Me or yourself?"
She wantes the truth.

So he replied, I can't love myself,
I don't exist anymore.
I'm like a ruby held up to the sun
Melting into one redness.
Can you tell the gem from the world
When a ruby gives itself to sunlight?"

That's how holy ones can truthfully say
I am God.
So be a ruby at dawn
And hold to your practice
Keep up the work, digging your well
Until you strike water.
Hang a ruby in your ear

And it will be the sun.
Keep knocking at door
And joy will look out the window
To let you in.

Z. Unloved

Have you seen the kind
Who settle for less?
Who creep into corners
Just big enough for one?
They are unopened letters
Whose message is this:
Live! Live! Live!

J. Night sounds

Through the night comes a frail wavering song.
The moment I can't hear it
I will be gone.

-All by Rumi

Remember for 1 minute

We do enjoy the civil liberties of freedom. We enjoy so much that the forefathers fought for. It is.very Canadian - very kind, very honourable, very human - to remember.  It is also true however that what we enjoy today is also the cessation of the mistakes of the past.  We are so protected from what we used to have to do.

We like to think that gone are the days where we would be drafted, forcd to kill pther human beings to protect our lands. But this is not true. Our ability to sit and not fight is not a function of our humane awareness but rather a function of supply and demand.  There is simply not enough supply if military wars to warrant mandatory demand for soliders. 

But the world is still a battlefield, a battlefield of the soul and mind, and we should remember today that we have all been drafted to protect our race, our species, from the threats againat our good nature.  Which of us will fight this war?

Übermensch returns

I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
-Nietzsche

I have slept. Slept tirelessly so as to attack darkness. Held her down and demanded she repay me. My dreams, my dreams, she took them!  Stole them from my wakeulness and hid them beneath my slumber.  I ripped them from her hands.

I have fallen. Fallen into the daze of days. What illusion! This idea that time had stopped and started again, only to change costumes from friend to foe. I notioned tomorrow was a surely my hero, yesterday a villain, and today a mere pedestrian.

I am outraged. I did this to myself. Working for less and asking for more, all the livelong day. I need a complete reversal; I ask only that you sustain me Lord.

I have reached another plateau. Can't live with so little art and I don't know how to get better at it.Everything is laying down flat and smooth. When the bumps settle it's time to pick up speed for take off.

I will use every instrument. Each day will be notes of my grand concerto. My pen and guitar, actions and erhu, feelings and bamboo flute, woodwinds and string my friend I am not so brass.

I will not feast; this fire was lit for more than dead meat.  I've had my fill and anyway while each of you sleep someone has got to get back to translating those stars. How else will we get off this rock?

Bed 1

Outside is so scary, my bed is the spot.
Out there, who knows?
You never know. Bugs, or cold or zooming cars.

And the people! It's always the same thing.
Packing themselves into loud places, where it's okay to not make themselves heard.
Children. I would rather my books.
Every page turn is a triumphant roar.

And my games, and my comfort. 
No need for shoes or gloves.
Not here. I would be naked but I would feel awkward.
If those people came in here, or watched from out there.

This is the life right here.
I got everything I need, I think.
But I think I'm hungry.
I'm not sure for what.

Where are my keys?

Purge the purg

Purgatory.
Purgatory isn't dark.
Purgatory is when the light of your past shines on the light of your future.
Purgatory is flood lighting; blinding, disabling.

Close your eyes; it pierces through your lids.
Dim your past light; future light burns hotter.
Fear doesn't help; darkness is light's favourite canvas.

Purge.
Purge yesterday for today.
Purge today for tomorrow.
Purge light like you would purge darkness.

Cinquain - "Pooh"

Pooh
Oh you
Haunting my dreams
Sent by my dream
Pooh