Stifled speech stuffed deep down inside for decades. Fortresses constructed of fear and anxiety defend emotions that cannot be identified. A thousand forms of detachment liberate the soul from ever truly experiencing the pain attached to loving. The art of letting go submits to the art of war. This is my kingdom. These are my people. Peasants ruling the castle and the kings left out to die in the fields. Alone, the jesters walk the apple orchards hoping to find solace their quiet presence.
04.22.18
Two flat tires on a BMW and a bike ride through the poorest neighborhoods in Minneapolis. East to West and South to back again. So many silent sporters moving around in little herds of twos and threes and fives. The cabin’s fever has broken and it’s sweat pours down the faces of so many. Manicured lawns and patio furniture moving themselves out of winter storage. Spring has sprung in this metropolitan zoo and the animals have escaped their cages.
05.20.18
Take your pills. Take them all you wrinkled old man. Take all those pills and go lie down. When you wake up, don’t call out for me. Instead, just lie there in your bed and wait for the strength to do things all by yourself. For when you wake, I will be gone. Gone for good this time. It’s been a long an bending path and you’ve hung in there like a champ, but it’s time to move on. Now, take your pills and get on up to bed.
05.21.18
A dark box in an empty room. An evening inside the blackout curtains. Cold dinners washed down with stale crackers and cigarettes. Dogs that walk themselves through woods across the street from the old folks home. Here is your fate. Here is your one way bus ticket. Here is your aftermath. Find yourself in the stillness of the funeral parlor surrounded by the emptiness left by your abandon. Find yourself in the streetcar bound for nowhere with an empty grocery bag and a rent check that bounced. Look backward toward your future and realize your present self is a mirror of your youth. You are lost looking for a road map. You’re trying to find that gas station in the desert that you passed a couple days ago. You’re trying to find yourself. You and your suitcase. All dressed up for the big party. All dressed up with nowhere to be. Your are you. You are nobody.
10.19.19
I remember lying in the bed and the dog would lay there between us until one of us moved in some way that disrupted him and then he would freak out and climb off the bed to go sleep on the floor. I remember that apartment so well. The hardwood floors and the bathroom tiles. The little cubby holes above the hallway.The thick coats of white paint that covered everything. I remember building the tables and the shelf in the kitchen and making pancakes and eating cottage cheese with cut up pickles. I remember it all so well and they’re all just memories I’ve packed up in the back of my mind. They’re books I’ve stacked in the corner. I walk past them and recognize their spines, but I never open them because I can’t stomach the stories. All those stories. That apartment. That time. So wild. So intense. The laughing. The arguing. The fighting. The screaming. The silence. The sleeping on the floor against the couch as some attempt to find comfort in some small space where my feelings wouldn’t get smashed. The hours long walks alone in the dark. Up seventh to Broadway all the way to 102nd. Over to fifth and up to the park and back again. Walking alone in the rain to give you space and some time to cool off when I was the one who was cold and had to buy a jacket. I thought the space was helpful and loving and kind, but it only widened the gap. Hindsight is incredible. Letting go is the real key though. These books. These memories. They are a part of my experience and as such deserve their place on the shelf. They don’t need to be read again. They need to be acknowledged for what they are and that is the past. They ought to end up in some Tiny Free Library. They are not throw aways, but rather they are text books to be given away to those that need them. They are my notes and the professor has said that they will be allowed. They are the past. Not the present. Not now. Not tomorrow. It was a whirlwind. A tornado. A roller coaster. It was a lot of things. It was. It isn’t is. These books are a mirror. An opportunity to look at myself and see where I am hanging on and from what I should be letting go. These books offer a reflection that defines my features and my beauty and my strengths. These books and this mirror show me my shortcomings and like red ink on the rough draft of my final paper they show me the areas in which I can improve. These books.