I always wanted the best for you that’s kind of why I wished you knew what you wanted in life, mostly and, you know, kind of who you’d like to be maybe one or two simple goals a job, career — a commitment-phobe is what I got instead with stress and anxiety round his balding head, and don’t get me started on the gluten allergy
okay, I’ll try not to make it personal –
as a bodhisattva, with bodhichitta I now pray for each and every being to be happy each and every day for all suffering to be gone for even you to get your fill for not one enemy I claim not one ounce of ill will remains
I hope you’re happy on your path I hope you’re surrounded with love and laughs I haven’t left a bit of wrath to blame anything on you even when I wanted to instead I saw the good you grew in me and many others
despite the bumpy, gritty roads calves in ditches and girl scout notes the ups and downs and round and rounds and endless suffering, I’d choose it all again — if I don’t escape this life we’re bound to repeat that goddam strife because we couldn’t close the loop our destiny will be to regroup
unless one of us is liberated, one of us is freed although I wish it would be you I must know it will be me
if what I see in you, is merely a mirror of myself a bloody tormented soul I’ve now left upon the shelf a chrysalis ripped apart the snakeskin that I shed unlike losing hair upon your head, intentional, even you remember intention maybe you even have it now
I believe we all can change
I’m doing it somehow
all beings will destroy delusions all virtue will ensue all beings become Buddhas
I cannot find the quiet I cannot drive far enough away I cannot abide in place I cannot fight the fray I cannot find the space I cannot prance nor play I am held within a cage, a dream that will not fade away
I cannot find a peace I cannot dwell in lonely caves I cannot energy release I cannot ride the waves I cannot tame my inner beast I cannot for patience save although I know this is a dream, I struggle to be brave
I cannot find the silence, I cannot fight my demons off I cannot give up hope I cannot be still with worries fraught! I cannot skate this slippery slope I cannot miss my shot if in samsara I can’t cope, then escape I keenly plot
I cannot give up now though many challenges I face I cannot give up now the pain grows stronger every day I cannot give up now because I’m closer yet than e’er before I cannot give up the path, I can bear suffering no more!
II
I regret all my bad actions that have led me to this point I can hardly fathom how I caused such a fruitless plight the minds I held divide and fraction now with familiarity I fight aeons of evil habits will see their last midnight
I rely upon all beings to train my mind to right I rely upon all Buddhas to correct my mistaken sight I apply opponent action best temporary relief I make a sincere promise to keep delusions brief
I cannot deny the karma that has brought me to this place I cannot ignore the causes turning to virtue, my only grace I cannot be separated from my Holy Spiritual Guide inseparably at my heart my secret Divine Pride
It laps my shore I lick it up, moistened soft and damp left yearning unoiled lamp left polished but wanting wear
I’m earthen –yet rarely feet have trodden here while I walk the substrate bare- footed, rare to see another with the will to exhaust such karma there– upon my earth travellers now fear such dirt and toxins leached have run amuck now gotten stuck upon my shores where you wish to lap me up
I do not trust I will not harm the beings near and you, my dear
I stretch my eye to the edge of the horizon — trying to find where water ends and sky begins unaware I’m standing in that ether now my waist deep wading transcends liminal space and I no longer seek to stretch my sightless senses far but rather remain to feel the space around
I look up and down and see that in the sky, reflected back, a different sea, a cloud soaring condensation ready to transform at any moment, dark and massive holding deceptive weight threatening to rise the tides and drown us all
I don’t trust the water
— — — — —
I am of the air
I do not trust the fire
I love it, though, and how alluring it dances and matches my rhymic fancies alighting neither here nor there
like spark to ash rising into the night up to the stars –suddenly dying, vanishing and descending silently — crying and proclaiming that life’s not fair
the fire burns me up its heat draws me in as if an answer to the ice around my heart as if it could possibly melt lifetimes of anger turned sorrow to rock how I wished the fiery heat-of-passion- spawned aggression was the answer crystal clear — yet the delusion’s not so before I’m eaten up I make like a deer and run
I do not trust the fire
— — — — —
I am of the light
I do not trust the space my depth perception’s off my conception’s out of place I do not trust the time the way it moves so slow to the uncomprehending mind that dims my afterglow
I don’t like the space between us as messages get lost, and when you’re seeing me as separate with problems you are fraught I see emptiness before me yet mistakenly, I know naming ordinary appearance where boundless magic grows
I do not like refraction how it contaminates my rays I am pure light I feel it yet space eliminates & constrains — though I am the brilliant being
I don’t trust the space
— — — — —
I am of deep ignorance
or else I would escape this elemental game — this cyclical existence in which I’m continuously betrayed by each and all delusions that gather round my head and constrict my heart’s pace so I can barely catch my breath it’s time to let this go into the water I will drown them & with the current let them flow
throat has seized and body lusts, reach out to grasp man built to thrust
yet nothing there for me to reach and absent trust rendered release
I cannot help but ask and plead, what dread clasp robbed me of peace?
II
such a force came over me I could not name I could not tame without remorse my mind possessed cut him down to see him bled
III
a piece of mind it held me back so his murder I did not commit but the urge arose, as I now recall, to myself hard to admit the need for me to train my mind before I face the nearing times when all are tested most will fail as they trained their minds to no avail
The Halfwit Writer 