The Universe Is Like An Algorithm

The universe is like an algorithm. However, this idea anthropomorphizes the universe because it suggests that the entity, which we consider to be all-encompassing and cosmic, actively perceives each and every one of us.

The universe being “like an algorithm” merely compares itself, in simile form, to a form of data collection which studies inputs and outputs to discover processes. To be clear: the universe is not an algorithm; it is like one. We can observe that our routines create patterns around us, and those patterns almost temporarily blind us from seeing alternative outcomes or realities, other than the ones we want. Fairy tales have taught us that seeing is not believing, and if we will it, we can have it. But, alas, first came Buddha who said, “Desire is the root for all suffering.” What was being referenced was immortality, pleasure, and material goods. We also have Taoist teachings about acceptance–and how we should be more like nature, accept our fates and our lives, to not aspire to aspire, and simply wait for aspiration to reach you. Then your spirit will live eternally. My tone might sound nefarious or judgmental; however, I intend only to be extreme.

I often wonder about what it means to be present. I question how much time must be spent in the present to be at peace. The stories we tell are part of the past. Even as we create stories, they become memories. Therefore, the more effort we put into remaining planted to the Earth, having wanderless thoughts, in control, there are no more sounds left to sing. Inspiration and complacency, or rather, acceptance, somehow live within the same idea. The algorithm which we call a routine becomes first nature where two things occur: panic or indifference. There is a possible third outcome, but it is much more complex in that it requires the individual to actively pursue a life that attempts to achieve enlightenment. The more we wait for the aspiration and inspiration and peace to reach us, the more we are distracted by the novelty in which we live: reality. We have nowhere else to turn but to the signs and symbols we rely on and “receive” from the universe. Unique to us. It sounds so bleak when considering how hopeless we can be, so we search for a reason behind what matters to us so as to avoid suffering.

For example, one day, a newly discovered song might make its way into our library and thus suddenly play everywhere henceforth. At the grocery store, in cafes, at the bank, the clubs and bars, at the truck stop, and on aisle 7 of the craft store. What came first? Our awareness of the song, or the song's existence before it came into our perspective? Had the song been playing all along and we had just never noticed it? Like an algorithm, the universe reads the personal data that we put into it, which later becomes the words we speak and manifest. We are fed ads and signals from the universe that serve as our definitive responses to the spirit of the Earth.

But the signs are always there; we just do not have the capacity to see them because we do not need them yet. Did our awareness precede the song's existence, or did the song persist, a hidden melody until unveiled by our perception?Sometimes the things we need most are there all along, but because we are looking in the wrong direction, we are blind to an alternate reality that might suit us. Sometimes we do pick up the signs but do not understand the words… yet.

If rest is what you need, what you desire most, and for the first time in your years of existing, you find a deck of affirmation cards that emphasize how to live an anti-capitalist lifestyle, what would you do? This deck of cards reminds the reader that they have the right to rest and feel unabashed by doing so. We assign meaning to whatever it is that we find most convenient. Flip the script any which way, and we can locate the precise moment in time something was “meant” for us. But can we really? A cigar is sometimes just a cigar, and that is what we gather from it. Maybe that is the lesson. On this rock which feels so vast and unafraid to be, to die, to exist. A tree does not look at its neighbor to ask them, “Why are we here?” “Why, brother, do our roots twist together to support each other. Is that love brother?” Life is nothing but the intangible becoming tangible, being made handleable. But everything dissipates, fades, dies, becomes dark matter within the chasm of the galaxy. So why then do we know so much? How can we be so sure? So right. We mistake how much we feel for what it is that is truth and fact. We are not our thoughts or feelings. We control them, even the ones that are uncomfortable. We are not our bodies.

We are not our soul but a soul existing within, existing within, existing within our minds within our bodies, within our thoughts, feelings, words, names, clothes, houses, world, city, culture, solar system, galaxy, universe, all folding in on each other like a house of cards, and we are… What are we left with when nothing is left? When everything goes back to the way it once was–nothing. Star dust? A single-celled organism floating in space until we start again.

And what it was is what continues to be: life and death over and over again. Until we use up all of the sun's energy, in epochs, eons, we humans might not even see it occur. And what then? What next?

Newsletter: Give A Fucks

I often struggle with remembering to breathe, a fundamental aspect of our existence. A prick behind my eyes signals impending tears; my throat tightens, and my nose stings. I'm moved by things in ways I can't fully comprehend—both good and bad.

Occasionally, laughter triggers tears, a momentary relief in feeling accepted. Yet, deep down, I care more than I admit; my emotions, like a wooden nose, have grown miles ahead, with a tree house built on its bridge by neighborhood children.

My internal dialogues resemble a toddler navigating truth-telling with a parent. Fear of ridicule or the need to apologize for feeling hinders my honesty. Why do emotions exist? I don't summon them willingly, and they often overstay their welcome, lingering like bad breath or a socially awkward friend. Ideally, I'd swiftly usher negative feelings out of my life, akin to expelling an intruder.

Feelings, at times, feel useless, unsolicited, self-created nightmares. A dream of a box, conjured by my mind, startles me upon opening, even though I'm the architect of the scene. Emotions surprise us, revealing different versions of ourselves like changing outfits. Choosing the right emotional "attire" for any occasion, akin to donning a metaphorical scarf and calling it happiness, becomes a skill not taught in school. Emotional regulation remains a taboo, a conversation reserved for private moments, resembling the discreet handling of personal matters in the bathroom.

Let's be brutally honest about our head standing tendencies. Ever get the urge to pull a ridiculous move mid-conversation or fabricate an elaborate tale about the secrets stashed in your drawers? Not the scandalous kind—more like the space where forgotten dreams mingle with rogue pens and half-baked project post-its. My junk drawer, a metaphor for dreams deferred, echoes the struggle between desires and the relentless call of financial, administrative, and capitalistic chores. If we laid bare the buried parts of ourselves, we'd realize our suffering isn't a solo act; it's a collective symphony.

Shifting perspective is key. Those abandoned dreams? Consider them archives of ideas that met their natural end and transformed. The uncompleted novel? It's not defeat; it's your evolving taste outgrowing past concepts. Art, like us, evolves, and some ideas need time to mature. Don't beat yourself up if that novel is still halfway done three years later; it just means your taste has refined.

Now, this perspective doesn't excuse slacking off. Artists navigate phases—inspiration, work, a block, and sometimes, contemplating quitting. Van Neistat's 'Artist Resentment and Gratitude Diagram' in "Why Veteran Artists Don't Quit" brilliantly captures this rollercoaster of emotions most artists ride while creating.

Commencing with the grand ambition of birthing "the thing," the artist vows to triumph over any hurdles. Next in line, meticulous preparation ensures no interruption due to lackadaisical material gathering – because no masterpiece was ever made with a shortage of glitter glue, right? Then, as the artist delves into the nitty-gritty work, resentment kicks in; the frustration of juggling success-related chaos (shows, press, interviews, networking, and the necessary evils of small talk). Cue the wall – that inevitable obstacle every artist encounters. While rookies might hit it and slump, seasoned artists scale it, chiseling through distractions to unearth inspiration on the other side. This brings us to the grand finale: completing "the thing." The last act? Appreciation, not just for the art but for the entire tumultuous journey – the testament to an artist's resilience and strength. For a raw and inspirational dose, check out the video here. It's a rollercoaster, but hey, what masterpiece wasn't?

What’s It To Yuh?

 If everything made sense we wouldn’t ask as many questions. At least that’s what I thought. Now it’s more about what we don’t know and how much we are supposed to which provokes a conversation. I can tell you about why the keyboard is not alphabetized, (if you care, ask me in the comments). I can tell you about plants, the California native ones, and their functions. I can describe taxonomy to you and some historical facts. I can talk a little bit of music with you but don’t get too technical. We can talk about the feelings it evokes. I can talk about art, making art, being an artist, and fine art. I can talk about a lot of random things that sometimes make no sense. I can talk about the way the planets move and how stars form, and tides, and random literature. I know a lot of weird science facts, like about mountain goats and sea otters, and gorillas and death. There are endless things I can talk about.

I know plants have senses, not in an anthropomorphic way, but in a plant equivalent way. Plants can see based on these photoreceptors in their leaves which can distinguish between red and blue light which allows them to develop and bloom in time with the changing seasons and early moons. They were tested with flashes of blue and red light, and which ever light it saw last, even if for the briefest moment, would determine whether the bud of the flower would bloom or not. This is how we get carnations every year on Mother’s Day despite them not being the flower of the season.

Plants can smell, they excrete a hormone, ethylene, found in medicine like vapor rub or hot and cold packs, which encourage its own neighboring branches fruits to ripen. This is the reason putting a banana in a brown paper bag with an avocado will cause it to ripen. Or the reason the Egyptians would slice open a few figs within a batch in order to cause the whole basket to mature. The same goes for Chinese and pears within the wine cellar. This hormone will alert its neighboring branches of infection or danger (i.e. A broken branch, aphids and infestation, etc). This causes the warned branches to excrete another hormone, methylene, which acts as a defense against insects or animals that may be consuming it or brushing up against the plant. 

I know that hops, which is in beer, is in the cannabis family. The bacteria which ferments beer, yeast, is just a giant blob of gooey living organisms. I know that the fruit which we consider a strawberry is not actually the berry but in fact it is the receptacle and what we call the seeds are the true fruit called achenes. I learned once that aspens are the largest living organism in the world. This is due to the fact that they spread via rhizome. Basically, every stem shares a collective root system and every root system is about 80,000 years old (making them the oldest organisms in the world as well). This is the reason all the Aspen trees in Colorado or Utah change their colors all at once, because they are one…

I learned that spiritual growth does plateau if you do not continue to practice it. I learned that coyotes live on Bernal hill. I learned that Jupiter can only be seen from Earth every 100 years. I learned that Am is my favorite chord. That when you put Am F#m C and E7 together it makes the prettiest song. I learned that you can only make art you’re proud of when your heart is in it. When there isn’t a cloak weighing you down stifling your voice, that’s when the real artist shines through. In the words of Sheila Heti:

“An artist knows [themselves] to be an artist because of how [they] relate to [their] own sincerity”

No one wants to enjoy phony art, no one wants to read something because it is digestible, not because there is some inherent rule against doing so, but because something unshielded has more flavor. Something that provokes thought is what makes a piece historical…worth talking about. Our failures, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities serve as a connection to the world (as in the people within it). They signal to it: “I need you because I can’t do this by myself”. The shame and embarrassment we feel is the glue that binds us all together. It is within that experience that we can connect to everyone else. My mentor and best friend said to me today: “We are the universe as long as we don’t stop being true.” Whether or not we choose to recognize the serendipity and synchronicity within the universe, it remains there for the looking eye, for the seeing eye. I learned how to look. I learned how to spy…

I learned what Spain looks like. The way it feels to see a familiar face after days of being on a plane and in stuffy airport air. The feeling of summer was evident. I know how it feels to leave your heart at the threshold. I know what the German countryside looks like. I learned that the houses look like gingerbread houses and the forests are the healthiest shade of green. I know what silence sounds like. I know what being held feels like. I know how love feels.

I learned that Earth may have a consciousness, and that it hums at a frequency of 8 hertz, and that scientists can hear it from space. They call this the Schumann resonance. We live inside a ringing bell with two electrically charged heartbeats. Lightning clouds shoulder unreleased energy which somehow suggests that whatever goes down also must come up. Every sprite, lighting strike, and thunderstorm equally receives the same amount of energy it produces. This energy sits at the base of the ionosphere (where electrons and ions flow freely within a layer of our atmosphere). Earth has evolved, almost as though it were conscious, to produce a negative charge on land so as to balance the positive charge coming down from within a thunderstorm. Similarly, lightning occurs when the pressure and energy of hot condensation from the ground precipitates and rises to the top of a cloud compressing it against the cool ice crystals that exist there. This friction, like static, strips the molecules leaving the positive charged ions to float up and the negative charged ions to move down. Eventually, the pressure builds so much that it cracks with an intense energy, zinging with bright electricity, followed by the loud delayed boom of thunder. A bolt of blue. I know that lighting can hit the same spot more than once, for example, the Empire State Building gets struck 23 times a year.

I know that three major regions of the world help create the energy hum which can be heard from space. Those locations are: the America’s , Africa, and the Maritime Pacific (a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean), and the thunderstorms which occur are the cause for the 8 hertz resonance. It’s a natural thing.

I know that Alaska has a four to six month period of 23 hour darkness. The reason being its placement on the earth’s axis. This is the same reason why in the winter we get less sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere as opposed to summer days which are longer. Based on the Earth’s tilt we can measure the time of year by daylight length. Winter solstice is the celebration, or indication, that Earth is at its maximum tilt away from the sun, making it the shortest day of the year. The opposite event is the summer solstice, where we experience the shortest night of the year. Each (Summer and Winter) equinox indicates that the Earth is equal parts in both hemispheres which in succession, slowly leads to either longer or shorter days.

I know about longitude and latitude. How the Y axis is Longitudinal, beginning at the prime meridian (located in the UK, Europe, Algeria, Mali, Burkina, Faso, Tongo, and Ghana) separated by the East and West hemisphere measured from 0^-180^ E/W. The X axis, being Latitude, begins at the equator (located in various equatorial countries) separated by Northern and Southern Hemispheres from 0^-180^ N/S. These angular measurements not only allow us to navigate and travel to pinpointed locations on the surface of the Earth, but measure temperature. When we consider the latitudinal points of the globe we see equatorial/tropical regions (N: Tropic of Cancer, S: Tropic of Capricorn) which are measured from 0^ at the equator to approximately 23.5^ N/S. Subtropical regions follow from about 20^-40^ N/S (temperature is paralleled on both hemispheres). Succeeding these are the temperate regions 40^-60^ from the equator and lastly, the Arctic climates which begin at 60^ and end at each pole of the planet.

Each climactic region has its own characteristics, but I will nutshell them all.

Equatorial/Tropical regions: where the sun hits the longest and strongest. Eternal summer, never dropping below 64^

Tropic of Cancer/Tropic of Capricorn regions: temperate and subtropical, characterized by hot humid summers and mild chilly winters. (The US South West to the Mexican Plateau lie within these parameters).

Polar/Arctic: long cold winters and short cool summers. There is a large variability in climate across the Arctic, but all regions experience extremes of solar radiation in both summer and winter.

Somehow all of these things connect as we go about our lives, but we hardly spend our time consciously thinking about them. A good grounding technique might be to consider something outside of yourself and try to understand it. In my case, it helps to understand how much space my life truly takes up within the entire world. Once I gain perspective and understand that my internal monologue is not the most pressing matter in the universe I can slowly begin to quiet my mind. Of course there are days that this is more difficult than others, but lately, completing work that does not directly benefit me, and rather aids something or someone else, helps fulfill a sense of purpose from within which we all need in order to survive. As primates, we share 98% DNA with gorillas and therefore have primal urges. Therefore, as conscious beings we are unable to navigate our own biology, we interpret our instinctual need for fulfillment as anxiety and stress. Fulfillment comes from having a pack, a community, and working for the people within it to create strong ties and relationships with longevity. (These are the words of a self help book I read a year ago). Fulfillment comes from having a purpose, and a purpose can be found by having values and opinions and therefore enacting these beliefs by choosing a path that aligns with them. This is up to you reader, with introspection you will find the things which bring you passion. Start somewhere, and go.

I know that when I wake up I will have to blink one eye slowly open and then the other, assessing the feeling in my belly. Are the butterflies here today? Are my feet restless? Sometimes I wake up with few endorphins, and other days I wake up with all the endorphins I need. On the days I don’t have the tools I need to operate my body, I have to make some. Physical exercise helps boost serotonin, reward systems help as well, and finally affirmations and grounding techniques. An example of one is assessing the environment and all of my senses: what can I hear? What can I see? What can I feel? What can I hear? Once I go through each of these I go through again and again, paying close attention to what my body is physically doing at the present moment, and only in the present moment. Breathing in I know I am breathing in. Breathing out I know I am breathing out. Repeat this to yourself and do not control your breath. I know how to find the gratitude flow. List things you are grateful for aloud, then continue to list things, different things, with your eyes closed, and do that for a while until it comes easier and faster. Right before you think of something you are grateful for—stop. Allow that anticipation of positivity and gratitude to envelop you. This is the permanent state in which we want to remain.

I know that in order to understand you have to lend an ear to listen first. I know that Fernet is used as a bartenders secret liqueur for two reasons: it doesn’t leave an odor on the breath, and prohibition. Firstly, Fernet is not a brand of spirit, it is actually the way amaro is aged, Some Fernet’s are similar to mouth wash and others like a woody mint. Back during the prohibition era the Branca brothers had an idea to create an alcoholic beverage which could be used medicinally, like Jagermeister, and which contained many poignant herbs and spices, so as to be considered a digestif. Therefore, the Branca brothers set out to the pharmacies near and far, promoting their product as one that could be taken after meals to promote digestive fluidity.

So what? So what I know all these things? That’s just it. I know these things, more even, and yet I continue to tell myself I don’t know shit. Still, I can achieve what I want, what I think will fulfill that empty space, but my achievements will not make me happy if they’re only meant to fill a void. To fill a void created during childhood, or adulthood, but a dark shadow that nonetheless lives within me, within us all. Don’t fret! Shadows are a good thing, every day we must see them in the hallway and nod good morning, tip the brim of our hats to them, and remember that they are there…because they are apart of us. If they get suppressed they will be angry. When the shadow is angry it will come out during greatly inappropriate times. Someone may set off an unintentional trigger and anger may arise, but coooool it man and fall apart in my backyard. Our emotions are created by our brains in order to assign meaning to bodily sensations based on past experiences. When feeling offended ask yourself: Is this about me? Or is this just being spoken to me?

So it doesn’t matter how much you know, and maybe instead, within recognizing that there is more to learn we can finally find the beauty which comes with accepting that we may never know it all.

The Year 2020

We stood front to back watching the fireworks shoot off into the sky behind the bay bridge. 

Five. Four. Three. Two. One! 

Happy New Year!!!!! We exchanged a kiss and entered the year 2020 without any fuckin expectations of what would occur. We danced all night, we spent our first night in my first apartment in SF. Life seemed easy, real. I waited, with youthful spirit, the obstacles I’d soon come to face. SF was unreal, it was a lonely place in the beginning. 

“Acid for the Children” became my best friend. I explored coffee shops, and kava bars, I walked to school everyday and worked mornings. Then tame impala happened: I discovered the night life in SF—I was finally 21 but that day I found my independence. The listening show was, what I consider, to be MY first night in SF.

Tamia became a single unit. We walked down mission, my feet killing me, three new strangers who I have now become good friends with somehow. The make out room, how I miss it so, how I danced and kissed and drank so many nights away there. 

I met Xxx months ago, where he lied about his daughter being his sister. The night of our meeting became a night of ER freak accidents and first dates, I can easily say that was one of the poorer decisions this year. Then came (xxx) and the romantic escapades, the drunken nights and infatuation was unlike any other. Firsts, they are harder than seconds and thirds because you are forced to feel every bittersweet emotion that follows the end of that first experience. 

The listening show taught me about drinking. I had done the dance with alcohol before, we were good friends, had a relationship, but, we created a marriage —once the pandemic happened. 

Life was unreal, it was perfect, it was new fresh, fun, exciting, it was all I could imagine life to be, and then it became not. It changed. Xxx came back into my life, hard. I created a new friendship with him, he became a sibling, a confidant, a partner in crime, Xxx and Ooo, the three muskateers. 

I married alcohol, but it was an abusive relationship. It would try to talk to me, gave me warnings within that I knew I should have heeded. I ignored them. They became more prevalent, my mind began to wither, my heart began to rot, my liver began to give out, my body was exhausted. This poor tired vessel was treated like a sewer. 

I met “the musicians”. Life changed again, I found a beautiful group of souls that have painted colorful pictures of imagination and creation. Minds that have gardens of colorful tulips blossoming from their ears. Faeries and Gypsies, hitchhikers and activists, lawyers and high priestesses, tax men and pianists. All of the traveling I’ve done throughout my lifetime can be completely disregarded when compared to the journey I’ve embarked upon after meeting these people. 

George Floyd, Breona Taylor, I heard your names in my sleep, not dreams or night terrors, I do not wish credit where credit does not deserve to be. Because someone’s death should not be a dream, it should haunt us, their names are remembered.

The virus took over like a deadly disease, because that’s what it was. The elections happened and it was like the whole world heaved one big sigh. Whether of relief or preparation of the years to follow, but the four year era is over for Trump. The asshole. 

No amount of convincing could have prepared me for the year 2020. A failed relationship later, a new one ensuing, a whole life ahead full of promise and uncertainty. Still I’m skeptical when I wake up every morning, as if this motivation will leave me, as though there will be some catch, as if my feet will slowly descend upon the cold floor for the first time in a year—but I am resilient. Old habits die hard, we’ve spent more of our years entwined within the hustle and bustle of life that it will be easy for most of the population to forget what this pace of living feels like. Never forget. 

Highlights

One of the coolest nights of my life nights to document: a two joint rotation with Xxx and Ooo, sitting cross legged in a triangle atop my bed...speaking minimally, smoking maximally, listening to good music and riding the invisible wave”

Sitting under the full moon with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city scape, sitting near the shore on a drift log singing along to redbone in the dark, looking over at xxx “peanut butter chocolate cake with koolaid” grin on our faces and good feelings 

The night I was leaving xxx’s house, only slightly intoxicated, in love with the solitude of the night. The quiet, empty streets, feeling the feeling of appreciation for life. 

Words Will Never Be Enough

a writers perspective

What is this? It has never occurred before. I am struggling to find words I concur. I find difficulty in assigning a thought to this emotion and call it a feeling, put it onto paper, make it a sentence, try to create a shape of it. In reality there are no words to describe the way I am feeling. Except there are...If I take long enough to try.

What I'm saying is what I'm not able to say, and that is that I'm saying the wrong thing. Over the course of the weekend I have discovered a depth within myself I had never explored, and it took "a little help from my friends." Subliminally, the universe has been masterfully painting a scene before me; and the canvas I am beholding is one which depicts a bright orb of golden light. If I look closely enough, I can almost catch a reflection of myself in its brilliant face of gold. Like pictures, I realized that there are simply moments that cannot be transcribed onto paper, no matter how hard we try. As though in an attempt to describe the color blue to someone who has never seen it before, I have been pulling at the deepest parts of myself, driving myself mad, incapable of applying meaning to a feeling. Even now I continue to dance around what I am trying to say, but because dear reader, I do not want to mess this up. I want to get it just right.

In order to get this right I have to go back...back New Orleans, a place with weary foundations but strong roots. Where the term 'southern hospitality' was coined on a front porch in St. Roch, and jazz was discovered. It is-and was-the mecca of soul searching, zydeco, and black magic women. Just up river, in Lil 'ol Mississippi, the blues were born and raised. Admittedly, jazz and blues are like cousins holding hands on a summer afternoon. New Orleans jazz is the kind of jazz that can be served alongside craw fish mac and cheese and po boys. The kind of jazz that makes grieving into another celebration, played and sung alongside Sunday dance lines. It is the jazz that draws you from the beaded streets of Bourbon to the French Quarter's Preservation Hall. It makes you spring to your feet, let a jazz cat swing you around the cleared area, giving you a yearning feeling of hearing it’s music the way it was played the first time. New Orleans jazz can only really speak through brass, bass, and heart. Sweet hep scarlet jazz has got soul, rhythm and:

"Hey-yo!"

"Hey-yo!"

...a lot to talk about. What I am trying to say is that there isn't one way to describe the feeling you get from the inside of a jazz club, there is too much history to begin with.

We are in the era, after a world apocalypse, where we have been granted three wishes, and nothing more: the chance to pay off our debts, the space to allow for suffering and reform, and the ambition to do the things we set out to do. We use our language to spin together these elaborate stories about our selves and our love, but those can fall short when there is no tangible proof of success. I no longer want to speak, I want to let the results of this success do so itself.

Let's go back up stream to Mississippi, where Jazz's cousin Blues sits lowly on the piano stool. Because I have not yet immersed myself within its birth place, I cannot set the same stage for the emotion it coerces. I have heard the blues. I have sung the blues. But have you ever heard of the happy blues? I was brought back to a place near the river, by the swamp, where the two states meet, and I can remember how hot that November was. There was a trumpet playing nearby, and a piano on the Mississippi shores, a sax within the trees, and someone singing under willow. It was a man by the name of Ernest. He makes his way to my music venue in San Francisco every Sunday after service, and sing us the blues. He sang us blues that reminded us of yesterdays and tomorrows and yesterday's tomorrows. In an improvisational jam, four men, from four different parts of this giant world, congregated outside before the setting gold sun-to preach the holy gospel.

I did not get down on one bended knee to pray, but instead to worship the feeling stirring up inside. Looking around I could see smiles and faces I had never seen before. Truth and spirit shone within each glistening eye of the small audience. Before the fleeting moment vanished I tried to remember the feeling of what it meant to be amidst this picturesque scene. I did so as a reminder that there was no where I would rather be than in the present. So that when times turned tough I'd know what I know now; about how smiling through the tears is not pretending (is not make believe), but instead it is lending hope to the future and the love that lives within it. Like the all knowing goddess she is, the universe kissed me atop my head, gently enveloped me within her rosy scented arms, and assured me of the beauty that perpetually exists within the world. I knew then what I still know now, that even if I told the story a million times to my nieces and nephews, I would never be able to make them feel like I did that day. For the first time in a long time I was listening, and this time I was finally beginning to understand.

Quiet Please

We fill the voids of silence with sounds that can be called words, called conversation. To me it just sounds like noise.

If the tail end of my sentence falls with the intonation of gentility and quiet, I expect to receive just that. Introspection is peaceful, and often my mind can get clouded and begin a silent meditation and when it is interrupted with more speech, more words, I lose the thought. There is a version of me which exists only within my head and it's calm there, the peaceful place within my own body: a temple. This mind palace has halls and corridors which I explore with a trailing hand, grazing the walls with curiosity, peaking around each corner with anticipation. Something stops me from opening the next door...

"And where did you grow up?"

I pull the answer from a different part of my brain and try not to outwardly sigh. Respond. Talking again, having a conversation and I find my face forcing a smile, my hands moving enthusiastically, my chest breathing out what sounds like a laugh. I finally catch up to my body and fill in the gaps. Instead of seeing myself from an internal perspective...the inside looking out, I take up the space where the external version of me exists. Here I begin to see through my eyes and not from the side stage of my peripherals. It's like I'm split into two: the intangible and the visceral. Within is where I find comfort, yet I simultaneously desire the mere pleasure of losing myself within someone else.

Lingering Emotions

Sometimes things don't pan out the way we anticipated, even when things are seemingly perfect. We are spinning on this Earth just to live, breathe, eat, sleep, and give.

To Y/N:

I miss you and us. I feel resentment because your life seems to have worked out for the best. It angers me because you reveal a sense of complacency which I wish were empathy instead. I know perhaps you are demonstrating your remorse in other ways: offering to buy lunch, beers, small gestures which may also just be within your nature to enact. I feel as though, however, you want your cake and to eat it too. If I give away the part of myself you desire, I feel like I will further lose myself to you, and the idea is that I should be learning to find myself within...myself. On the contrary, I feel like not doing so results in the same. The same guilt I used to feel arises within me: that by sparing my body I am harming your well being. That by sparing my body I am not demonstrating reciprocation of your "love", of your "care". As I write this I understand the delusion behind infatuation and the way it forces us to blame ourselves for the insurmountable. I feel I have not been honest with myself, or you. I apologize for being bitter and mean, I take longer to process my emotions. I love you. We will be friends forever, and I do adore your talent and charm. Thank you.

Laughter lingers before me, but my hands do not reach to grasp the origins of it. They simply hang by my side, sans intention, removing themselves from before me and slowly inching to bind together behind my back. Tied down by my own mental discourse, but I am not its slave and will not fall victim to it. This plume which writes words that I control is absolute. I put letters together, form my own thoughts, these thoughts slip like the ends of sentences slipping from my grip. Phrases are not written in reverse, as I read and write this I release this emotion onto the page and bid it farewell. I stand propped on one leg, the other foot crooked like a flamingo. Hands shake, but write more freely as I admit what provokes my sadness.

Rebirth. You are here.