I have promised patience
in exchange for a kingdom of happiness
I have promised patience
in exchange for an appearance of love
I have promised patience
in exchange for unattached enjoyments
I have promised patience
for you, so we can complete the path together
So I wait, like a princess in her tower
with patience, my Buddha nature I empower
I promised patience, and I wait for you
with faith unwavering, my heart is true.
Why do you torture me?
Does your eye boast truth
or do mine bear fiction?
I write lies to soothe me to sleep
a samsaric slumber steeped in tales of attachment,
happiness served on a silver platter
just a taste and, absent of addiction,
I’ll be satisfied — just your touch
and I’ll not want more — a lie
like salt water quenching thirst —
only thirstier I grow for
— just your tongue lending sweet
nothings to an indiscriminate ear
incorrectly discriminating — just your
taste to tease unintentional senses
dependent upon such sour
senseless ignorance dependent upon
countless causes, rebirths, misunderstood
and non-existent selfs — but maybe still,
it’s just your self that will satisfy this self
& somehow, still, we will escape samsara
— a lie of attachment, a joke, a wink
Is that what you mean to give,
when you torture me?
I want to be
someone who loves you
with no demands
with no expectations
with no history of delusion
I want to be
the pure love always within you
yet still,
I cherish only myself
I want you to see me
I want you to love me
because of this
damned self-grasping
And then I laugh remembering
we is just a dream
To my Ex,
Thank you.
You have given me much I will cherish for years to come. Nothing I can keep in a box under my bed. No pictures to burn. Gifts far greater – ones I will carry with me life to life, like my pure love for you.
Patience.
Before I met you, it was rare to walk slowly through nature, and never would I think to name its parts. Waiting was a great torment. Sitting silent was near impossible. Then, you mixed your patient mind with mine.
Faith.
You challenged my beliefs constantly. A torture at the time, but such a gift to progress. This obstacle appeared to destroy our relationship, but served as a test I passed time and again. You helped me try each teaching until I had conviction in each one. I valued them more than temporary relationships. I would keep them at the cost of my life.
Love.
Though we did not know unconditional, we strove. I accepted love from you. And I found my happiness only in giving. For we can never take love for ourself from another. That will never cease suffering. Loving you has helped cease suffering. Loving all beings (even spiders) creates my happiness.
It is only in reflection that I can begin to understand that I was absolutely blessed by the Buddhas that my path be made meaningful and my travel swift. Thank you to Buddha, who appears as friend, family and foe to guide us from our misery.
If we can remember to apply the primary practice.
Thank you.
Love,
your Ex
The lid closed slowly —
it used to slam,
startling you
lots of loud noises
offended, scared you
one day, I saw
I had become a loud noise
now I’m quiet,
tamed and evenly tempered
my mind is trained,
practiced, wise
the very things you wished
by the very method you hated —
blessings.
I see the toilet seat
fall — slowly
silently
and wish blessings
upon you
still
To the Musician,
How can I count the ways
I have experienced joy
with you
already
How can I tell thee
the way you make me feel
when I know I have
created the causes
How can I share wisdom
when I am drowning
in samsara’s sea?
Still, you have helped
dispel the ignorance
of a thousand aeons,
a dreadful darkness,
with a single torch
How can I tell you
how happy I feel
how content I am
in the present moment
here and now
with you
while also planning
our escape
Because to
escape suffering
permanently
is my only wish
especially
with you
happy
beside me
Love, the Muse
(His last words)
I feel gooey inside
I mean more than usual
I think my insides are melting
something warm is happening in my heart
it’s making a bubble
something’s about to pop
this really doesn’t feel quite right
I think I’m rising from the inside out
the heat supposed to be external
but this is gutting me
tearing me apart
hot bit by bit expanding
and do you see this bulge here?
no! not my stomach!
hoo-hoo!!
don’t poke me at a time like this —
can’t you see I’m in pain?
oh! dire pain!
being wrenched apart
baked wrong side out
surely this isn’t in the directions —
can we trouble shoot?
something’s happening to my throat
the words aren’t
coming out good
no more
ooey gooey heart
hoo-hooo
Okay… so this isn’t the thirstiest. x.x but can you picture that it probably isn’t Mrs. Poppie Fresh Pillsbury Doughboy doing it for him. 😉
You might not need a tall glass of water, but perhaps a cold glass of milk and a hot, soft chocolate chip cookie would satisfy you.
Late spring 2018
What you risk reveals what you value. — Jeanette Winterson
When one finds themselves in an unexpected or surreal place, I think it is normal to start reflecting on the events that led them to that point. We go back in time and wonder if we could have forecasted any or all of it. I think leaders, public speakers and the ilk do it often. They think back to being the shy kid in school who didn’t put themselves “out there” and then appear on stage as if it was an inherent gift.
I can’t help but reflect on the adventures that led me to lying on the rocks of Temiskaming Shores on a cold spring day in late May. My fingertips chilled as I type hastily into my phone. Pen scratches on sticky notes with ideas for a blog post, poem or book. If I don’t write it down now, it will be lost forever. Or so I think.
Everyone experiences their inspiration differently. I met an author the other day. We had a decent conversation, and I got the name of his book. I sold him a subscription to Microsoft Word. I do that now. Sell things to people. In a way, I always have – in retail and non profit. And perhaps I always will. Somehow never in order to or with the intention of actually making personal profit or gain.
When I reflect back to my “old life” in Niagara, I didn’t imagine myself here. I could imagine adventure and travel and I had hope for some kind of success. But I didn’t know how to bury my acorns and have something grow. I didn’t know I could make my dreams come true. I was cynically optimistic or optimistically cynical, and I didn’t think that real love or happiness was possible for me, would be possible for me.
When the impossible happens to you, when you experience a miracle or a have a dream come true, you believe that experience can be true for everyone.
They just have to work harder, believe in themselves, cut out pictures from magazines and post them on a board they look at every day. I’m not so sure. I think we can all manifest our desires and a type of happiness that can sustain us in this life. But it’s not so easy for everyone. Some of us are born with a four leaf clover stamped on our souls (or a lucky horseshoe up one’s ass, as a friend would say). And others must face each of life’s hardships, often over and over, even watching others do the same.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I love an unlucky one. Luck is non-transferable, I’ve learned. It’s not even inspiring. It can cause resentment. Sometimes luck is not fortune. Sometimes it is hard work. But when you were born and raised in survival mode, and you’ve gained the knack or XP for surviving, it looks like fortune. It can even feel like fortune. Sometimes it feels like you don’t deserve what you have, and when things are good that they shouldn’t be.
This life is hard to navigate. You need people that make it better. You learn from them and they instill in you their hope and values. Sometimes, perhaps more often than not, people teach what not to do and who not to be. I have a running list of what not to do and who not to be. I have been burned and scarred from those I once respected. I have been stabbed by those I never trusted, but they got close enough to leave their mark nonetheless. I constantly yearn for a mentor. Someone who can teach me something I do not already know. I am such a fast learner. But my path has been made slow with obstacles that I would not let myself move around. Oh the amazing lessons I’ve learned and the gifts I’ve received! But none are what I’ve asked for.
Isn’t that the point, though?
written in 2013
Entice me with your words
pierce my walls with meanness
show me you have the power to break another person
yet you refuse.
Show me you have the willpower to stand up
and alone
have the ability to open your door
welcome a stranger
and trust they will not throttle you in your sleep.
Tease me with kisses and polite dialogue,
an intercouse of exchanged language
with kind innuendo but no
biting sting of
regretted words.
Demonstrate your strength
not in feats of power
but in exploits of courage,
the deed which you complete though
you know you’re licked before you start,
see it through.
Toss your speech with abandon
but not your ideas –
your ideals are by your heart
and you live not beside them
but by virtue of them
unto others
though they do not the same.
A vital man with an Achilles heel
I in turn choose not to sever,
a choice my own — as all my acts
are of my own volition.
For I have power too.
As you penetrate, I consume.
As you guffaw, I may also laugh.
As you devastate, I ruin.
As you toy, I play.
As you adore, I love.
I am passionate, above all else.
Prove you have a compulsion for life,
you choose endurance over death,
you have potential to be a
raft for those without
water-wings,
for my exigency for life
is almost extinguished.
Demonstrate a lust for adventure
that is comparable to my own
so we can rid ourselves
of this boredom, tedium,
this dullness, together.
You are a collaborator,
a fellow conspirator and colleague,
a fellow traveller on this quest,
upfront and honest,
sparing only of the sensitivity of others,
unless for a private laugh —
For laughter is god above all —
the ability to laugh at good and bad,
strong and weak,
not others, but ourselves,
in the dark and in the light,
a reason to go forth,
and conquer
not all,
but love.
I’m done with wishy-washy
done with undecided
Finished with fools
I’m ditching unreliables
I’m done with second chances
done with forgiving
Prove yourself now or get
on with your living
I can’t deal with backwash
won’t swallow minced words
I’m tired of dream fluff
save that bullshit for birds
You were spineless and weak
a watered down turd
No more namby-pamby
get gone from my life
I’m holding out for a hero
who’s holding out for me, wife
Your fickle vacillation
nearly drove me insane
And worse, you blame me,
as if I changed my name
I’m done with remembering
I just don’t have the time
You were too wishy-washy
Now thank god you’re not mine
The Halfwit Writer