There is no Pill
Or Beverage
That can fix
It
All—
One can run,
Into the open,
Escape the slaving dungeon,
But darkness
Follows, and condenses
Wherever He should
Lay to Rest—
One can forever
Run,
Only to realize
A Life’s Time
Is not enough
To hide.
So Young one,
You and your
Unspent Beauty,
Take to the Strenuous strides;
Learn to work
In darkness,
But resting in Light.
“Oh God! What the hell is that smell?” He flinched in disgust, as if stumbled upon a dread wrapped in elements of surprise.
“What smell?” You said, flat-toned and nonchalant.
In reality, you were aware, but it was more worthwhile testing someone (not out of judgement, of course–but as an escape, to kick away some daily banality).
“Do you not smell this?! Gah…”
He could have gone into more descriptive detail, but he doesn’t. Perhaps he couldn’t. That’s just the way he was, a man of few words—literally.
“Hmm. Whatever you are talking about, I must have gotten used to by it now.”
You two were squeezing shoulder to shoulder, trying to make way past a dense crowd.
“Damn it, I didn’t know it was going to be like this. This is nasty, man.” He was serious, but not severely so. He could bear more where it came from; but something made him complain more than usual that day.
“Welcome to my domain, haha. Come on, it ain’t so bad. ”
“Is this what it smells like here, everyday?”
“If that’s how you’d imagine it, I guess that’s how I’d put it. Well..it’s just a spice, or however many spices they are surrounded by, you know?”
Once upon a time, you had the brief honor of meeting a man, an ordinary man, who never seemed to become dismayed by insensitive remarks, and always had a near-innocent patience to explain his circumstances to those who wished to get laughs out of his countenance, sometimes even his decisions. It didn’t hurt him when people didn’t try to understand. As such, his humility made him an extraordinary man.
You were trying to practice the same virtue you admired—as opposed to complete rejection of all that which shoves you out of your elements, try to adapt, then see why a part of you is upset by it. Upon understanding the nature of your complaint, and the conditions surrounding the very thing that disturbs you, it becomes easier to nullify what was once a nuisance, into a fact of life—something tolerable and most importantly, free of discriminatory stigma.
“Man…how do you do it everyday? Having to come here and smell all these people..? It’s like they don’t shower…or something, god. I hate it when people don’t clean themselves.” He stated his conviction more straight-forwardly.
“You’d be surprised. In a lot of parts of the world, people–”
“We are all in America, aren’t we? If they come here, they need to learn the way.”
Conversations of this sort, you had encountered much too often. Right then and there, you were too tired for a potentially rift-forming argument. It had been a long day, and he’s a good friend.
You decided not to press it. However, it was truly befuddling; how can a man, who’s traveled half way across the world, all the way to the poorer countrysides in parts of Africa, could perceive a foreign scent as terribly intolerable.
“I guess.” You responded.
Don’t you know,
Dear one,
Need
There is not
to lie.
Little do you
Know—
Or much do you
Forget—
The Silence
Knows
All
Yet says
Nothing at
All
About your
lies.
You were told
To close your eyes,
So you do–
Without suspicion,
Eye-lids
Shut
In an automatous,
Curious flutter–
Then,
A miniature
Bouquet
Lay
Beautifully
Delicate
In your hands.
Fresh, delightful,
And fragile–
Too good
Were they, for
Your more wicked
Self cringed
At their sight–
Exuding a new gleam
In that cold night,
In your hands
A gentle cradle
of Love and Joy;
Some of which
You still
Cannot understand–
Like a sound
Of Redeeming
Purity
Amidst a fallen
Mecca-full
Of deafened
Drums.
A dose of sweet medicine,
Leaving you blessed and terrified—
Were you sick
Before,
And were you
Only then,
Upon inhaling Innocence
And Scent,
Finally beginning to,
Through
Great Effort,
Wakened from an
Ageless Neglect,
Overcome
Your Fatal
Illness,
And become Well
To and for all
Once again?
“Once you suffered passions and called them evil. But now you have only your virtues left: they grew out of your passions…And whether you came from the race of the choleric or the voluptuous or the fanatic or the vindictive:
All your passions in the end became virtues, and all your devils angels.
Once you had wild dogs in your cellar: but they changed at last into birds and charming singers.
Out of your poisons you brewed your balsam; you milked your cow, misery—now you drink the sweet milk of her udder.”
—Nietzsche.
The Rain clouds
Had come down
And washed
The Dirt
Away—
It got cool,
Wet, and Gray
For a while,
The air anew;
Once more
Un-stifiling—
A Revival Breeze.
Then the Sun
Peeked out,
And slowly
Brought the Sky
Back to day;
Its
Late afternoon
Brilliance shone
Gentle yet luminous,
Tranquilized
By the impossible,
Afterward caressing
Of the Rain.
Though
In great pain,
I was Happy
To Live
That day.
Let us love again,
And relive each other
This time,
As one matchstick
Gradually kindles another—
Such as yours—
For two simultaneous
Flames burning
Too close as one,
And too often,
Procures a radiance
Too headstrong
To perpetuate
And to prolong—
Why not let us ignite
Much of our
Unconsumed Love,
Starting only from
One end,
From one torch
At a time, and
Delivering each one
To the next, and
Unto the other—
Only sharing Fires
When the darkness
Gets too strong.
Hold our affection
In Savored rations,
And by embracing
The in-between
Unknowns,
We cultivate slowly
A unbreakable bond
Then,
Then when our flames
Finally ebb
To the Ashes,
Crisp, fine,
And well done,
Buried
Underneath
Will be
A story of Love
That stood
Life long
Against the cruel
Hands
Of Time.
You don’t know if you are drinking from it, or it’s somehow drinking you.
Those forgettable lagers that often hide behind the veil of attractive bottles and labels—you must have been an idiot to have romanticized how tastefully the condensation would the gather round and shroud, in fine tiny droplets, the once transparent glass bottle, painting it the hue of chilled, perspiring opaque.
A perfectly bland beverage. You might as well be drinking the bottle itself.
.
.
.
She never quite liked your much mediated habit of drinking. But something tells you that, if you had used all your might to stop, to render yourself free from all substances, in the process, you’d truly become a bad man. A man too clean, too pent up, and not to be trusted.
Then again, there are times when you would contrarily catch, in the strange mirror, glimpses of your beloved father: a great, compassionate, and massively intellectual man: an addict, with no self discipline. Such instances cause you dire cravings to rip off your inherited skin, and become square—just to remind yourself that you are your own man.
Perhaps, it’s this oxymoronic rift in all things, even behind the act of downing a few useless beers, that makes it worthwhile to wake up to another day.
After great pain, a formal feeling comes–
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs;
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round–
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought,
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone–
This is the Hour of Lead–
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow–
First–Chill–then Stupor, then the letting go.
—After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes, Emily Dickinson.
There he sat,
his Love like
A piece of charred
Coal
Following
Its most radiant
Hours.
Smoldered
In the afterglow
Numbness,
Yet
He carries
All the same
Passion and
Intensity
As he had
When first falling
In Love—
Only now having
To confront
A certain
Burning absence,
That’s all.
.
.
.
Perhaps, in some delusional but understandable way,
He was just crazy and strong and foolish enough
To solely allow the more miraculous instances
Linger and live on,
And to nurture them as a lasting beauty—
All in this ambivalent, erratic sea of sentiments
On the planet of Love.
The only sentiment he can rightfully cling onto
Is that the Love he shared was True,
And that alone is utmost cherish-able—
The absolute Divine awakenings and rescues,
Gifted by a True Love—
So much so that,
He shall only look back,
All grateful, bittersweet
Saline in tears,
Dissolved in understanding,
And wiped away in smiles.
Particular Moments 