It Is Love

She reaches me in places I have never been reached,
Filling my being with Light,
Surrounding my soul with the essence of Love,
Driving me to heights never achieved.

She touches me in ways I have never been touched,
I can feel her near me even when she is out of sight,
I can sense her around me even when she is not near,
Sensing in all that which she is to me.

How can I explain the unexplainable?
How does one describe that which has no description?
It is just as it should be, such beauty surrounds,
It is so purely all that need be - it is Love that is me.

I find her in the Holy half of me,
Softly being there to share the Light,
A part of me as surely as I am part of it,
The beginning of life and the end of fear.

When such demons invade the other half of me,
She is there, the light to defeat such darkness,
The sound of silence that instills such grace in me,
The view of eternity from inside the abyss.

She is not me, but she has discovered me,
And in this I am utterly devoted,
For peace and love have removed anger and fear,
It is simply meant to be, It is Love she has found in me.

Once you feel pure Love it is all you wish to feel,
The darker half of you cowers in its presence,
You even feel the sunshine in every raindrop,
You feel the warmth in every snowflake.

Once you live in pure Love it is the only life you choose,
You feel joy in the challenges that befall you,
Happiness finds you even in the worst of pain,
You open your heart to what is, not what was or will be.

You see beyond the confines of an evening sky,
The void that allows the stars to be,
You find the light in the darkness in which you stand,
And when you smile you are free, It is Love that you see.

Sick

I am so sick of being unhappy.

I am so sick of being miserable.

I am so sick of worrying.

I am so sick of being unsatisfied and of not satisfying.

I am so sick of being tired.

I am so sick of being sick.

I am so sick of being separate.

I don't know how much longer I can take it.

Guilt

Today while meditating I realized that I am the guilt I see in others...that I am the guilt I throw on the world. I live with the complete understanding that all of the guilt I carry inside of me is what has driven me not to trust and to see impending pain in all that those I love do. While seeing this realization, I am not sure how to expose it to revelation - to the awareness that ends such darkness. I am sure such tests shall present themselves to me, and in those tests I will see my reflection on the world.

I open my heart to change, my soul to awareness and my Being to Oneness. I seek to find God in me, God in you, and God in all around me. I cannot judge my past actions based on this realization, they are but an illusion created by my own illusions. Rather, I must forgive in order to seek forgiveness, I must be peace in order to find peace.

God, please help me in this challenge, please allow me to be.

Looking into the Pond Looking Back at Me

The world is but a reflection of me,
Whatever I share with it, it offers in return,
Whatever I give it, it gives back to me,
Whatever I see in it, it sees in me.

I can only change the world by changing my self,
I can only find love in the world if I am love,
I can only find peace in the world if I am peace,
Whatever I am in the world the world is to me.

The world is but a dream surrounded by darkness,
It is as I wish it to be even as my ego fights what is,
The more I fight the more I suffer,
I am but Looking into the Pond Looking Back at me.

In order to be forgiven I must forgive,
In order to be loved I must be love,
Forgiveness is an action of love, but love is not an action,
It is a state of Oneness with Being, the part of us that is God.

To be one with Being is to be Love,
To be separate from Being is to be the illusion,
To seek Being in the light is to not find it,
You must be wandering in the darkness for it to be revealed.

When you find Being you will know it,
It will no longer be separate from you,
You will no longer need the darkness to see the light,
You will no longer search for what you are -

You will be the Pond Looking Back at You.

This Daily Test

Today was certainly a test...but not one you could "pass" or "fail", just one you had to experience. It is just a test based on its own merit, one on which you could sit back and review and understand its place in the moment. A proverb stated "You hear and forget, you see and remember, you do and understand." Today was a chance to understand.

Through the many challenges, I don't think I could have handled them any differently than I did at those moments. I am still working on being the watcher, on seeing my mind rather than being my mind, so I was not prepared for the giant steps today would have me take. I caught glimpses, but the pull was just too strong.

So today I did, and I understand. I understand I am not ready to run yet, so I will continue to walk. I understand I simply cannot expect to get to the summit without many tries from the base of it first. And I can honestly say that I am happy to have seen this, to have done this, and to know that I can at least see what it is I am not yet prepared to accomplish.

I am also happy that I was able to collect these observations and not hold on to them. The reactions today are NOT me, they are my mind, and I certainly am becoming less my mind each and every day. I am not disappointed, I am not angry, I just am.

Find health, give peace, be love...

T

Denied

To have felt the rays of love
From an unselfish sun,
Is a gift of existence which cannot be returned
And cannot be denied.

To have felt the splash of clean water,
Upon uncleaned skin,
Is to feel the hand of Nature comfort and provide,
As to open the soul to that so denied.

To seek that which is beyond this moment,
Is to starve the Being of that which gives it life,
While to stand on such stable ground arms outstretched wide,
Is to stand in the Presence of that which cannot be denied.

~Tom Grasso 4/4/09

This Moment

This moment I am but a fetus,
Provided for by all that is,
Warmed by all that is around me,
Secure in the knowledge my universe is that which contains me.

Then I am born.

This moment I am but an infant,
Provided for by all that is,
Warmed by all that is around me,
Secure in the knowledge that my universe is that which contains me.

Then I grow.

This moment I am but an adolescent,
Provided for by all that is,
Warmed by the knowledge that I am so much more,
Yet secure in the knowledge that my universe is all that is me.

Then I mature.

This moment I am but a young man,
Providing for myself,
Warmed by the knowledge that I am my own man,
While secure in the knowledge that my universe revolves around me.

Then I grow older.

This moment I am an man in mid-life,
Providing for those around me,
Warmed by the knowledge that those I love depend on me,
While faced with the knowledge that my universe is something I cannot understand.

Then I grow old.

This moment I am an elderly man,
Provided for by all around me,
Warmed by little that is around me,
While faced with the knowledge that my universe is quickly coming to an end.

Then I die.

This moment I AM.

Ode to an Ending

It is time to let go,
Let go of all around me,
Let go of the pull such things may have,
And just let them be.

As setting suns betray the day,
I can hear the foundation of my life cracking around me,
The stones, they fall into the sea
With a splash that resounds in the endless night.

You are but the sand for which I built this foundation,
The rock of salt for which there is no steadfastness,
The time of day for which there is no reply,
Just the memory that seems to say "all things must die".

There are no hands reaching out to save me,
There are no outstretched arms to comfort me,
Just the unending need to leave behind,
Those things that left me behind long ago.

So, plead not my self,
Nor plead for that which will not come,
Seek solace in the loneliness from whence you came,
And in the solitude for which you are heading.

Do not feel distant my being,
Nor find distance from that pain that sees you alive,
Find comfort in knowing that these things, as all things,
Are but temporary in the moment they are conceived.

For now walk alone with those around you,
Seek to play the tune in which they seek comfort,
And bide the time to bid them farewell,
As they have bid you farewell long ago.

Do not find pain in their ignorance of you,
Nor fall for tricks found in their phony words of love,
Stay true to that which brought you here,
That trust that all things are as they must be.

At last the suns betray this cold night,
A warmer day may appear upon the horizon,
Or a colder blast from that which all things come,
Or from which all things find a reality.

For memories that find themselves in the Now,
Shall die before they take root in the making,
Unless it is me that gives them time to be
Anything other that what they where.

And as I pause to take note of the essence of what is now,
I bask in the glow of knowing such things are in passing,
That the suns shall surely betray this day as well,
And that yet another rock shall crumble into the sea.

But for now I will savor such absence,
Of a caring hand, a loving embrace, a tender kiss,
And know that this rock too shall fall,
Perhaps in the absence .

Such is the ode to an ending,
A cause not withered by time or dreams
But born in them beyond our control,
And to that birth I remain so betrayed.

The Ego of Me

What is the ego? Well, there seem to be two simple answers.

The first one is anything that follows the simple phrase of Being "I am". Whatever you can put after "I am" ceases to be about the inner self but rather the outward expression of your mind, a form of ego. It is you and your story, it is your identification, it is your need to be something other than what you truly are. It is the "apple in the garden", the "original sin", the wedge between Being (God) and you.

"I am ugly".
"I am fat."
"I am a Democrat."
"I am right."

None of these describe who you truly are, but rather are identification with the outward expression of thought. None of what comes after the "I am" is real...but rather the dust from which it will return.

The second answer is anything that comes after the phrase "you are". It is what you identify others to be, not what they truly are. It is truth in your eyes only, a judgment that, as all judgments are, is faulty at its conception. It is what you use to either bind another to you or segregate them. They are either with you or like you or they are not. Whenever you follow "you are" with something, it is your own ego assigning the label.

"You are beautiful."
"You are a loser."
"You are mean."
"You are wrong."

Odd, but when you say to someone "you are beautiful", it may have come after they have said "I am ugly." See the fault of judgments? They are based in nothing real, nothing stable. We often might say to someone "you are a loser" right after we ourselves have failed to meet our version of identity in ourselves.

I will leave you with a story. If I was to ask you "what is a tree?", what would your answer be? Common answers would say "Well, it is branches and leaves and bark and twigs and tissue and roots." But is that really the tree? Collect the branches and leaves and bark and twigs and tissue and roots and put them in a bucket. Do you now have a tree?

The same thing can be said if I ask "what is a human being?" The common answer may be "Well, he is skin and bones and muscle and blood and water and organs and hair." Is that really true? Collect some skin and bones and muscle and blood and water and organs and hair and put it in a bucket. Is what you have a person?

What makes the tree a tree and a person a person is not the form you can see. It is the indescribable force that resides beyond the form that not only makes us who we are, but binds us. It is the part of us made in the image of our Creator, the Being in the Human Being. It is the part of us we need to find as we look inward. It is the part of us that is God.

A Cross to Share.

We all have our "cross to bear"...something (or some THINGS) that causes us despair or suffering in our lives. Sometimes these crosses not only cause us to fall, but cause others to suffer in our failing. I find the story of Jesus failing and Simon of Cyrene yet another example of the New Testament bearing the challenges of life into prose and example, and while I am not here to debate the veracity of the story, I am certainly understanding of its place in our lives.

I can personally speak of many things in my early life that led to tremendous failing later in it. There are literally an encyclopedia of instances and times that created my cross, that which I bore for most of my life. There are probably many examples in your own life you can site as a "cross", and a few times when that cross just became too much to bear. In our weakness, we dropped the weight, fell to our knees exhausted and in utter despair. In other times, we stood weary and weak but defiant, finding our own method of dealing with the torture in our minds, our souls, our "being". Some turn to drugs, some turn to suicide, some turn to continuous and unrelenting self-destructive behavior meant on "protecting" that self from the dirt below.

I have always found it odd that in my need for self protection and in the practice of self-destructive behavior to that end I seemed to only "wet the wood" of my cross. In that, I made it much heavier than it need be, and the cross itself was only too willing to accept my offering. Stranger yet, the more I "wet" the wood, the more I sought to defy it, as if I knew more that the weight suggested I did. I can only say today that as I stare at the scars on my knees, the bruises on my shoulders and the splinters on my back that I obviously knew far less than I believed. Each scar and bruise is a lesson learned (hopefully), each splinter an example of the futility of attachment, the suffering of ego.

It was only when I could offer my cross to someone willing to bear it with me that I could see the absolute idiocy of attachment to the pain of the past. We all can site a dozen examples of pain in our past we hold on to today. I have heard from friends who have suffered so intensely, not because of the pain itself, but because of their attachment to it. They can't let go of it, and they use it as a reason or cause for any assortment of issues they have today. Still, when we pass off the lumber to someone we love, we find it utterly torturous to have them deal with the suffering our attachment to pain has caused. In some, this creates unmatched suffering and a dysfunction, to others it causes an awareness of the lunacy such attachment creates.

I can say that when I shared my cross, the suffering it created caused me to seek to shed it completely. That was the purpose of the sharing it seems, to light shed on the idiocy of holding onto it, to finally seek and end to the suffering and my attachment to it.

In our lives, we have many "soldiers" who will whip us into carrying our cross with false strength. They will continually use the "whip" of whatever power they have over use to push us forward, usually to the destination of their choosing. If we fail to reach their assigned destination, they use the power of their "whip" to complete the torture. Our cross (or our attachment to it) becomes their control over us, and we allow it because we ourselves have no identity without the cross we bear. If we also have an attachment to the soldier, we will not only carry the cross of our lives but also learn to love the whip in their hand. We see what they consider the necessary destination as our ultimate goal, that in somehow pleasing them by the sweat and blood of our brow we will find pleasure ourselves.

In this the soldier can be those we "love" or who "love" us. It can be mentors, husbands, wives, teachers, parents, siblings, or even just a best friend. The whip can be sexual in nature, or the return of love, or the idea that "forever" is more solidified. It can also be just a positive reaction, an feigned acceptance (acceptance can never be earned, it is always there). Perhaps in this metaphor we can see the relativity of this analogy in our own lives. If we can see it, we can become aware of it, and in the awareness such unhealthy darkness cannot survive.

There are times when our actions while carrying the cross cause other to suffer in our midst. Our own "Simons" bear the weight of our cross for us and in this suffer along with us. Some are pressed into service, like the guy at the bar we beat up for no real good reason, or the family we gave the finger to when the cut us off in traffic. Others volunteer (although some not knowingly) when they enter into a relationship with us. Regardless of the reason for their "assistance", they are scarred nonetheless, hampered in the shared splinters and binding bruises. It seems as if their joining in our suffering only "wets the wood", makes our cross all the heavier for their effort. We not only have to deal with the original carpenter of the cross, but now we have to deal with the guilt of putting them through pain on our behalf.

In this action and reaction, it seems perfectly acceptable for anger to be the method of reaction and guilt the continuance of the anger. In our Simons seeking change in us, they may use a variety of means to see this happen. We owe them somehow, or at the very least we find them seeking freedom from the memory. They, in turn, create their own little cross out of the splinters we leave them from ours. What seems worst, as we relinquish the control the cross has over us, it seems as if they cannot, they need to hold onto that cross as if it is the only thing between them and certain death. They become more than just our helpers, our partners, but now they become the soldiers destined to see us to THEIR destination.

I liken this event to getting water from a stone. You turn the spigot, nothing comes out, and you curse the stone. You do this for weeks and curse the stone each day for its failure. Suddenly, just as you seek to be finished with the stone, it produces a torrent. Do you still curse it? Or do you appreciate that it finally is doing as you need it to do. Sure, it took its time, but is it where you want it to be or are you where it WAS? Perhaps your lips are still cracked from thirst, but you seek to curse the stone for being a STONE...a strange occurrence at best. You seek to tie your condition to it, rather than understanding that things were as they were intended to be.

Perhaps we should just learn to love the stone for being a stone and a well for being a well. Accept them, and should the stone provide water for you love it just the same. It would seem that in keeping anger towards it for what it did yesterday, we seek to hold on to the attachment we created in our anger towards it. We create a cross that we simply do not wish to relinquish, and in that creation a bit of insanity uniquely ours. We become insane, a slave to pain and ego that will only seek to repeat itself over and over again!

At the end, perhaps we just need to love. We need to love those we are in love with today. We need to see them as they are, not as we would like them to be or how the WERE. We need to open our hearts and arms not to our vision of perfection we expect the other to be, but in an unselfish love that seeks to accept, not to pass judgments. Can we forgive? Can we live for today in a way that makes yesterday a forgotten moment and tomorrow unexpected? The answers to those questions will not just seek to create peace in our own lives, but growth to loving relationships that never fail.

Still, if we seek to "choose" we have failed in our quest already. Don't choose, just BE. Don't think, just BE. Don't talk, just DO. And best of all, don't question, just LOVE. These all happen simultaneously in acceptance and Being, and they are without effort or "work". Be still, and these will happen. Learn to find the silence that allows the noise to be. Happiness abounds from this point forward.

The long ride home.

So, you are on a crowded highway trying to get home after a long day's work. "You" are tired, frustrated, anxious, and just plain bitchy. The idiot in front of you is more concerned with his cell phone than with your need to be 10 feet further north. The truck on the left of you is not letting you in, a sure sign that he has completely disregarded you and your need to be in front of him. The bastard behind you is laying on the horn because you feel that getting in front of that truck is much more important than his need to get home. A language typically reserved for drunken sailors abounds in this world of hostility, a language you may not ordinarily speak but one you surely understand. It seems almost foreign coming from your lips.

This scenario is truly a definition of insanity. "You" repeatedly act as if your screaming, horn honking, middle finger raising self can actually have an impact on the situation by acting in such a manner. "You" are suffering, painfully so, and in acting in such insanity you have no real clue as to why you are suffering so much. You are in darkness, and now is the time to bring some light in.

I often wonder if the creatures of this planet look at humans and give thanks they are not us. In this wonderment comes the realization that we create 100% of our own suffering. We simply refuse to accept our condition when it doesn't suit us.

Another thing to bore you with...

So the "not as good as the guy I was mentally fucking..." was supposed to do what exactly? Make me angry? Make me sad? Pay me back for needing more than you can give? Have me suffer?

Hardly, it did none of those things. If you think I am naive enough to think those things were not happening for quite a while you are crazy. Even Saturday before the wedding, you were sopping wet, I know that is not me doing that. There is no way a man you barely want to touch can get you that excited...so stop thinking I am some turnip farmer who just fell off the truck.

My real reaction was at having needing to go to any extreme for even the slightest fraction of relief or pleasure. No, I did nothing except lay on the sofa and meditate, but the fact that you allowed it to "happen", even if only in your mind, spoke volumes. I suppose I am the only one in a two person relationship who needs to be concerned with the other's happiness. It is, in essence, where we are - me wanting sex daily (even multiple times daily) and you using it as a weapon to exact revenge (or simply just allowing it to reveal how far off we really are).

Beyond the bullshit there is that coldness you displayed early in our relationship, the one that really drove me to extremes of fear and reaction. It is really hard to depend on your soft side, it always has been, given the coldness of your nature. Oh, you can be sweet and beautiful, but look out world when the tide turns and the beast moans! It is that coldness that I first saw in the hotel room not a month into our relationship (the first of many sleepless nights), the one that confuses me to this day.

Do I protect myself from the beast or remain open to the side of you that simply does not exist in "our" world anymore? You were, after all, not attracted to any soft side of me in the beginning. I was not one who was cold and callous most of the time, but I certainly did not take shit from anyone, let alone someone who could destroy my "world". Something changed in me with you, something that didn't like the asshole as much as the potential Being, something that sought change even in face of the demons within. Sometimes I just am left to wonder whether it was better to seek the change alone than to count on another who simply is not interested in the effort.

Well, I find myself here, at this moment, still in love, still hoping, still paying...not that you are spiteful or anything. It just is that you are all you hated in me, again, something you can blame me for. After all, I have such control...such power...as to make you all that you seek to change in me, rather than you being that which I seek to be. I do wonder what will be next, can the change I see in me effect a change in you? Or will you simply continue to hear the voices you have become so attached to whispering in your ear? I can't control them, and I must learn to stop suffering for those things beyond my control. I am pure in this love I have for you, and yes I am human all the same. I simply cannot be anywhere else.

Here are the facts as I see them, (no anger, just the way things appear):

1. I do not matter in your life as a matter of fact or anything else.
2. You seek the approval of others even as it masquerades as a need for self approval.
3. You need absolutely nothing to do with me, and you masquerade it as anger and hostility when in fact it is simply a loss of love (like a boyfriend-girlfriend thing that has run its course). There seems to be no hope for redemption, no hope for reconciliation, no hope for salvation because you simply don't want it to happen.
4. You are as interested in my wants, needs, fears, feelings or thoughts about as much as I am in who is in the American Idol top 12.
5. I am unattractive to you on so many levels that ugly is too kind a word.
6. I am last on your list for all things.
7. You had no issue discounting any of my feelings with the wedding and of course simply cannot find any fault with anything related to you. Everything Heins is perfect. Still, as long as we were able to pay for it all (yet not have a nickel to rent a game to play with the kids today).
   
8. The only time you care to show love is in public, where the absence of the "show" would "embarrass" you by displaying the way things really are. During the reception you were kind, caring, loving, and almost normal...afterward right back to the "us" as we really are.
   
9. We must continue to focus on my faults, because in doing so we focus on things we cannot change (the past) because you simply do not want this thing fixed. If we continue to focus on things we cannot fix, we get to continue to argue, feel pain, feel anger and be distant. You love the distance, and you shall have it. The only thing you don't want is to be alone, so you will tolerate me to that end.

I accept these things as they are.

So, the question remain open, are we in a relationship now for the self or for each other? Do we "separate", or as you say "start going out with our friends more", or do we dive into each other in the hopes of finding salvation. I know from experience you cannot find safety in the outward world, it can only be found inward. Still, I am no prison camp guard, if you wish to be free you simply can be, but I cannot function in this relationship as it is now. It either goes inward or it ceases to be. Once it goes outward it is no longer a relationship, it is a farce. I can live in the farce, once it is clearly defined, but I cannot continue guessing as to my status in your life. We can stay here in the cold and callous times we find ourselves in, believing that watching TV is "togetherness" and that sex is a tool for revenge. Yes, as you get your freedom I will be angry and hurt, but in that suffering I will learn. I always do.

Perhaps this will be the last time I bore you silly, it doesn't really mean anything except allow me to vent when I have no other recourse. I changes nothing, probably doesn't even give you pause to reflect and certainly cannot get you to see things through different eyes. It is what it is, and it makes no sense to make fudge for someone who doesn't like chocolate, even if it is covered in vanilla frosting. We just lick the frosting off, and spend our time dwelling on the part of it we don't like.

A Book to You, My Wife

I just am not sure what it is but I feel totally uncomfortable. Maybe it is payback, but I hope that we are getting beyond the need for purgatory and more into the realm of Heaven. Let me explain, and maybe in the writing there will be some solution even without burdening you for it.

It is a fear that I have felt often in my life. That sinking feeling that I will be abandoned, left in the dark without a light, suffering, alone, lost. My heart actually begins to beat louder in such distress, as if I am on the edge of a tall cliff just before I dive into the unknown waters below. It is a fear that could bring me to tears if only I hadn’t faced it so many times before; they well up in me only to be suppressed by the anger that has kept me warm on so many cold nights. It is the lone wolf in me, the shadow of fear replaced by the radiant explosion of anger, the loneliness of dread replaced by the voices I have heard way too many times before.

It is the Genesis of the pattern of self-destructive behavior, the ego screaming for it’s binky, it’s blankie, it’s way. It now scares me, and added to the fear of being vulnerable is the fear of vulnerabilities outcome. I would never let it get this far without doing something stupid, something irrevocably dangerous and harmful. This time, I am identifying it, trying to make it disappear in the light of awareness and in this effort I am discovering the root of its existence, the cause of its awakening, the meaning of its reality. Its days are numbered.

But it’s here right now my love, talking to me, telling me that I am going to lose, telling me that it will be more painful to lose if effort is expended, forcing me to hear it while pretending it doesn’t need to be heard. In turn, I cry inside like a baby, begging it to leave me alone, begging it to go back to sleep while pretending I can’t hear it. It is the saboteur of our life together facing me yet again, but this time I feel as if I have someone I can rely on to face it with me, and in that battle I feel it only right that you know what you are facing. You are facing the worst of me in love.

I have never been more in love with another human being more than I am in love with you. Such dependence does not shine normally in my heart. I learned at a very early age that to love is to be vulnerable. I used to call such vulnerability a “weakness”, one that I simply would not have in me. I would sabotage every possibility of such weakness, ensuring that I was alone just long enough to find someone else to practice such strength on. I could never let anyone in on this feeling for to do so was to increase the vulnerability, to ensure the weakness. One could not simply be strong and expose a weakness! No, it was simpler to get such “conquests” to hate me in my strength than to love me in my weakness.

It is obvious to me now that I have never really loved until Megan was born. I never really felt the need to be loved, in fact a part of me relished such loneliness. That changed when I met you. Your tenderness touched a part of me still in infancy, your smile warmed a part of me still left frozen. Your touch made me tingle, my voice made my heart race, your eyes just blew me away like salt in a tornado. This was the very first time I met you, imagine that. A man-boy who refused to love or be loved in such despair after one moment with a soul so much a part of him he couldn’t not get her from his mind. It wasn’t just about your outward appearance, that attraction would come soon enough, it was some thing about you that words cannot describe, the part of you that is me, the Oneness we shared even before our first kiss.

It ended life as I knew it my love. It ended me as I knew me. It took time, just as an infant takes time to grow into puberty, it took time to finally see what it was that was happening. Every time we would meet or work together my mind could not get past the physical manifestation of this new feeling. My heart would speed up, my mind would race, my palms would get sweaty. I would get lost in your eyes for what seemed like hours. I needed to be near you, not in you, but near you. Again the “in” part would come later.

Destiny worked to my advantage. Things fell into place. The miracle of existence became the miracle of fate. I could smile again it seemed…or could I?

I have told you about the first time I noticed you sexually. I can still see you sitting there and the slight movement in my pants as I got a glimpse of the frog. I remember looking at your back, your hair, your arms, your skin. Your lips, your mouth, those rings on your fingers…I am beginning to feel that movement again…where are you when I need you?

Anyway, the turmoil started in me the very first date we went on, right about that time you made the comment about the man crossing the parking lot. The voice began, “what are you doing” was, I believe, the very first question out of my mind. You were just so special to me in my soul and so damn attractive to the rest of me that there was no way in hell this relationship was going to work out. I overlooked it, but it ate at me for weeks. I began to see threats all around me the more I fell in love with you. I fell in love with you during our first introduction, I fell complete after that first date. I was gone the first time our lips touched, I was completely lost as I touched your body. I was, for the first time in my life, vulnerable.

And that created the threats I mentioned. I caused the monster to roar loudly in my mind. I saw your friendliness as a threat – you were flirting in my mind’s eye. I saw your not ending the relationship with Shawn as a threat – were you leading us on to choose between us? Were you fucking him behind my back or vice versa? I was a mess baby, not because of reality, but because of what my mind was telling me reality was. That thing with your fake “cousin” – proof that my mind was right and my soul was wrong. The arguments we had were not really me with you, they were me with me. It was my mind sabotaging what my heart longed for. The battle inside of me was a tremendous war, it tired me beyond fatigue and caused me to morph beyond all identity. You didn’t answer your phone? You were lying. You didn’t tell me where you were? You were cheating. You weren’t with me? You were with someone else. Man, I can still remember those days and I can still feel the utter fatigue of the struggle within me, not to mention the additional struggle it was causing with you.

Yet you stayed and fought me through it. I never really did address the cause, we just fought and forgave (or not) and forgot (or not) and moved on (or not). The beast was still there, only feeling a bit more dominant for the fight. Still, having sex with you was the highlight of my life. I could live for a sexual encounter with you. I still remember vividly some of the great sex you gave me. It’s mind-blowing to me even today. God to get back to that would be completeness in life. Not only are you greatness, you completely take my soul from me when we are intimate. And now to the beginnings of fear I have right now.

No, this is not another “I need wild sex” prose, it is rather a voice in my head speaking to the subject. I can almost hear you telling me someday that this is not mutual. Whether it is your hands in action as mine try to be, or the fact you never make me feel desired or even satisfactory in this aspect of our life together, there is something that tells me that someday in your coldness you will finally tell me that you simply are not satisfied in this way, that you needed more, that I was just not “it” for you. This voice is loud, and I know where it comes from.

I am opening myself up a bit, wanting to show you love and affection in the way I feel it when the wall is down and the door open (this is a cliché fest, I know). I scares me in a big way, as if you will use this vulnerability against me. It keeps me from being fully dependent on you or the relationship. You know how you are scared to do to bed alone after watching a scary movie? That is how I feel emotionally, like the darkened hallway I am about to enter is wrought with threats and doom is certain. It freezes me, causes me to swing at enemies not really there…always with the voices going “or are they there?” I want so desperately to believe they are imaginary, unreal tokens of emotional immaturity even as I swing in air almost waiting to hear the “thump” of weapon meeting reality, the threat realized.

So the fear, what I call the “beast”, doesn’t dwell in the darkened hallway, but rather in that part of me that fights the demons who reside there. Fear prompts feats of great strength and achievement, but in my case it can do just the opposite (and usually does). I am not talking physically, but rather mentally. Fear certainly propels my body into better than average action because I create an anger out of it. What fear does to me mentally is a whole different story. It is almost like I regress into infancy, my mind works to subvert my soul, instilling in me that need to act out before acted upon. It is what drove my fuck-ups in the past with you…the need to feel in control dominated my common sense and soul. If I could create in me the knowledge that I was desired by someone other than the threat, then I was safe. You could steamroll me and I would survive because I was still desired. Stupid shit, I know, but when you walk in unconsciousness all things are possible even stupid things.

Today I feel that fear. I loved last night, sitting on the sofa with you, just feeling you on me. It was emotionally fulfilling to me. I felt great inside. I had you half naked, I could feel your skin, your tits, see you in your beauty as my wife, my life. I could feel the blood rushing to my groin, the racing of my heart, the absolute beauty of love that I had each moment we shared. Beauty is defined as those moments to me babe, no other definition is needed.

Yet in it all was the nagging question created by the beast, “why doesn’t she want me?” You know, no playfulness, no teasing, no seduction. In fact, I tried to rub her, but you hate when I touch you there. I must say you are the first person I have ever known who hates to be touched there. It starts me wondering if you don’t want to be touched there, or if you just don’t want to be touched there by me. I am sure you can see where the question would come from. I am sure if you went to rub my dick and I stopped you, telling you “I don’t like when you rub it” you would question yourself.

I really didn’t care to watch TV to be honest, but I was not giving up that moment because the TV was on. I loved every moment of it, and really only fantasized about you “taking” me once (in this fantasy, you actually just went down on me as we sat there and then took over from there). Other than that one moment, I was just in the moment, loving it all and wishing it didn’t have to end. Other than that one moment it wasn’t sexual, it was love purely without the physical – which made it a bit easier to let you sleep (although not entirely easy).

I am walking in fear today for sure. No, not the kind of “I am an idiot and need to be stupid” fear, just fear. I see threats, everything from you needing to go out more with your friends to who you are walking with on Saturday to your need to look so freaking hot as to kill me each moment I am not inside of you. I see you being pulled from me when I will need you the most. I see some pain, a fear of losing you, a fear of needing you in a way I can’t console. I fear a separation in us that only widens, a gap to large to cross or close. And yes, it scares me…I have much more to lose than you do it seems.

Awareness is the difference this time. I feel it…I can see it almost as an observer, but not quite. I can observe it but I can still feel it, meaning I am not separate from it yet. I long to be, not as a dispassionate observer, but a passionate one. I long to be soothed by you in understanding me and where I am at any given moment. Things like this will only bring us closer I hope, in a way that begs us both to be dependent on one another for needs such as this. It is new territory (for me), unexplored ground from which these feet will carry me. Are you my guide? Are you the outstretched hand that beckons me further when there is nothing left inside? Are you truly that which guides me? I long for the answer, and will give you all that I am in the quest. You remain my love, my soul mate, my reason for searching.

I love you…

T

Time To Say Goodbye My Friend

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
For time has said goodbye to you,
As it will to each of us one day.

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
Allow one last embrace before we part,
Such sadness knows no delay.

You shall now return to the Sea,
Please take a piece of me,
It's time to say goodbye my friend.

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
I wish I told you more before you left,
If I would have only known.

It's time to say goodbye my friend,
I wish I held you more before you left,
I feel so alone.

Someday I shall follow you,
We'll be together again in time,
But for now, well for now,
It's just time
To say
Goodbye...
My friend.

But a Teaspoon of the Sea

To be something - an expression of self,
That does not define the self,
But expresses the self as it is as that moment,
Is the purpose of life eternal.

Such a need is found in this Being,
A desire to express the love of this moment,
As a service to others as a service to self,
A need to be the change I wish to see.

Allow me to be such a vessel,
Calmly living this moment as it seeks to be lived,
Devoting all of self to it,
Understanding its Divine intention.

Allow me to seek the beauty in this moment,
and not to seek the charity of the next,
Find in me the eternity of Now,
In the outstretched hand that accepts its fate.

Allow me to seek such a place,
Where I am nothing more than what "I am".
I am but a teaspoon of the sea,
And to that sea I shall return.

Allow me a voice in such throes of inspiration,
To not think but live in the moment,
Find in me such freedom in cause,
That carries this tune in a such blind ecstasy.

If I but live in this moment,
I have lived nonetheless,
I have lived an eternal lifetime forever found,
In those things that don't exist at all.

For I am but a Teaspoon of the Sea,
And in this spoon I am myself,
A separate spoon are we all?
The Sea is but the place we return when the spoon is no more.

Speechless

Such words from your speechless mouth do form,
Enough light to keep this planet warm,
In meaning found from thoughts not taken,
Is to find a sleeping soul awakened.

I can feel your tears shed in the night,
and can feel your breath come day light,
To lay awake it only seems,
I must stay asleep to dream such dreams.

You whisper softly - no words at all,
In slumber's midst I hear your call,
The song of spirit from whence it came,
Are speechless songs not at all the same.

Remember all of time my friend,
Shall never hear this the music end,
And in time shall see such spirit free,
When I find the better, speechless me.

My Friend, My Gift

To see such beauty as you my friend,
Is to open a heart full of light to the world,
And to have such memories as I have in you,
Is to hold in delight what words cannot say.
To be in such a way my friend,
Is to know the meaning of good fortune,
As to have called you "my friend" at all,
Is to know the goodness of what life can offer.

I have but been lucky to hold you close,
Both in my heart and in my arms,
To comfort you in all discomfort,
To share in your unbridled joy.
To see you in such a pure light as to see nothing else.
In this there was no chore or labor at all,
It simply was and is nothing short of wondrous,
A miracle of memory I shall not easily surrender.

To see you now my friend,
After the years have passed and our youth has set us free,
I take joy in knowing you, and in seeing who you are.
I am left in sorrow for not being there all these years,
To comfort you in your discomfort,
And to share in your unbridled joy.
For to see you as I see you now is to have a cherished gift,
One I shall cherish for all the days of my life.

My Cross to Bear

Such lovely willow blossom bare,
To thee my sweet the essence there,
Such nectar true to me decide
Whether stuck in truth or truth denied.

Fondled free to a withered home,
Absent in my Judgment's tome,
In longing's grasp so tried and true,
I am longing to be tried by you.

To be the cause of endless pain,
Is to find a means to be insane,
To defeat in me such ego's charms
I consciously outstretch my arms.

Effortless to spike me there,
We all have such a cross to bear,
To fall not once, not twice but three,
Is to find such strength to carry me.

I shall always wear this suffered ring,
And bear the scar of suffering,
In time the Crown has seemed to fade,
The mark of ego thus betrayed.

So I stretch my arms to take the wood,
I'd take the nails if I only could,
To deny this place and deny me there,
Is to deny I have this cross to bear.

An ode to my wife.

Today I wish to pay homage to my wife. No, not out of some silly guilt-ridden need for something, or some quest to have her "owe" me, or even some sly plan to have her "pay out" in her own special way for my thoughts. I just wish to offer some insight as to the lucky man I am, and the impact one human being can have on another.

First, let me say that words to fully describe my feelings are impossible. True enough, my Creator has blessed me with enough gab to fill a set of encyclopedias, but in that gift I understand just how poorly a job words are at describing true and raw emotion. Perhaps it is because words are mere things, and such emotion goes so far beyond any thing in this universe as to make words so completely useless in their existence. Perhaps it is why we can best communicate such emotion without words, without a need for such things.

Also, I don't post this publicly for any "reward", except in the desire that my wife never forgets who she is in my life, and in hoping that others read this and perhaps hold their partners a bit tighter, and never take them for granted. Sometimes life gets in our way, and it never hurts to remember the power of love and what that power is capable of.

And sometimes we as humans being in this world just need to know the impact we have on others.

I view myself as one of the luckiest people alive. I have lived through hell, the kind created both by others and by my own ignorance. I have been at the bottom and seen the top. But most of all, what I value most about this experience we call "life" has been the love that has driven me beyond what I believed were my own limitations. It is such passion, such emotions, that drives the me that is in form beyond what the me that is not believes it can go. It is, frankly, not just love that makes the world go round, but is what makes the world.

I recently had the distinct pleasure to sit next to an elderly lady on a plane ride to Pittsburgh. She was old in body, but her mind and mannerisms were of youth. She was a football fan, a Steelers fan, and we went back and forth about the Steelers and the Eagles, the Steagles, and I informed her how lucky she was that it was not my team who faced hers at the Super Bowl. She informed me with similar passion that she had just been to a parade that was, of course, not in my town. It was very fun, and made the trip very quick. She told me she was widowed several years ago, and that her husband got her into football and she fell in love with it decades ago. It really made me pause to reflect.

I looked into her eyes as she spoke of going to games with her husband and saw her memory fade back to those years. I could feel the love in her description of those times, and understood that it wasn't so much the passion for the Steelers that she enjoyed, but the memory of the passion she shared with her husband that drove her. I wondered without asking if she thought about her husband while at the parade, if she thought about him during the game, and of course I knew the answer. It was simple because I could relate.

While I looked into her eyes as she spoke, I saw my wife's own eyes looking back at me. I wondered if my wife shared a similar passion of me. As I looked at this woman's hands, knarled by time and condition, I wondered what time had in store for my wife and me. Would my wife's hands reach for me through time and space? Would her eyes search for me through the distance that time would create? Would I still hold a place in her heart after years had gone by, after time had taken its toll?

I realized I simply could not answer those questions. Yet, while catching a shuttle from the airport to the hotel, I took a glimpse into my own heart to seek things as they are to me. Regardless of what the erosion of time would do to that which is my life, our life, I could certainly understand in my own being what my wife, my partner in life, meant to me.

And in those 25 minutes and in the day since I unlocked my soul and just allowed words to form. This is as mighty of a description as my limited abilities will allow, and is a simple gift I offer - a part of me to a part of you.

She is simply the hand I reach for in the night. She is simply the name I call when all words fail me. She is simply the dreams that wake me in the night. When all else becomes dust I know that I can turn and she will be there, smiling and arms outstretched. When I am bloodied and battered she will tend to my wounds. When I am vicious and mean she will be the music that comforts me. When I am loving and kind she will be the mirror that reflects all that I do. Her skin will soften my own, her words will make mine understandable, her dreams will inspire me to greatness. She is my essence, my soul, the light which protects and guides me when the darkness threatens.

These are but words, they don't scratch the surface of what this mere man feels when I am with her. My skin tenses to her touch, my eyes glisten with her art, my soul expands in her very presence. In my very human way, I am ignorant of these things in the noise of life. As all things shutter around me I forget the tear that forms when she exposes her soul to me. When the noise is loud I can no longer hear the music in her voice, I can no longer feel the tenderness of her touch, I can't see the light of her way. I become more human without her, more insatiable to the ways of life then satiated in the ways of love. I become a nothing, a thing of skin and bones and tissue and flesh, all of that that makes me more human than being.

It is then that I realize that God did not make woman for man, but rather God made man of woman. God did not make woman for the companionship of man, God made woman to complete man, to become his essence, to guide him in the darkness, to inspire him to become more. Woman, in her beautiful essence could survive easily without man, but man would be doomed without woman in his soul.

In this there are no words, nor deeds, nor gifts, nor discipline of action that could give my wife what she gives to me. This day I let her know that she is in every thought I have, she is the essence of every still moment in my life. She is the wind that powers me, and the only hand I seek to have in mine. She is the only thing I will search for even as time and condition have taken their toll on this flesh and bone and tissue and skin. My being will always search for her in the good night, my soul will always cry out for her in the noise of life, and it is those things of being that will cause those little bumps on my skin at her touch, will cause that tear to form at the view of her soul, and will cause the hairs on my neck to stand at the thought of her kiss.

I love you my wife, I love you with all of my heart and being. Neither time nor space nor circumstance of form can change these things. They are, as intended, pure and selfless. When such conditions of existence cloud our eyes and deafen our minds let's not forget the essence of what we are, of what destiny seeks to prove in our togetherness, of what love seeks to prove in the experience we share. We have what is priceless, we are wealthy beyond all comprehension not just in the love we have but in the awareness of it. In that manner I offer you my life and all that I am in simple understanding of what it all means beyond the flesh.

Finally, isn't it wonderful what one seemingly meaningless and anonymous moment in time can create? I often wonder how many of those meaningless and anonymous but priceless moments of time we squander in the noise of existence. I often ask myself, how simple would life be if we only had 4 seconds to live? How would we treat those 4 seconds? That, however, is another story...

"Please don't expand..."

Sorry, but you know that I am just not that good at taking orders. Particularly ones I never could obey in the first place. I did hesitate sending this to you, strictly because you seem to think my writing is a ploy to gain favor, attention or some other bullshit. I write because it is the most effective way for me to share my feelings and emotions, I do not write for the approval or the acceptance of anyone else. It is my way of communicating in the best way possible, and you can take it or leave it as such.

And now to the dreaded expansion...

The strong emotional ties summed up in that song matter. Yesterday, I was meditating to music and that song simply stirred up so many emotions that it seemed perfect in describing the feelings I was having at that moment. I am not sure that I was feeling what the song meant to Gordon Lightfoot, but they became something all their own. It is that I wish to expand on (despite your desire not to hear me out, please try).

I feel like a ghost,as if I am non-existent in the real world because I am bound at the ankles by the chains of the past. I am completely imprisoned by a lack of love, a lack of desire, and a lack of "now". I feel as if I have lost you, that we are just existing in this - you in the real world and me as a "ghost in a wishing well", frantically waving my hands to someone who can't see them, who simply wishes to move on beyond me.

You must feel as if you deserve such thoughts, as if I have earned this distinction, as if you simply need not care whether I live or die, smile or cry, reach out or withdraw. I feel as if you see me as no longer your lover, I am your husband, bound to you by a signature and children with little else between us and no hope of their ever being again. I am a "hero" not prepared for the part, who has failed as they often do, who cannot regain the stature or place in your heart necessary to continue the effort for any other reason than continued growth and hope for a better future.

In that essence you have played the movie queen, whose role it was to save me, set me free, make me better regardless of the outcome. In the movies we walk away unscathed, a repentant soul and the woman who unselfishly stood by him to see him become a better man. Somewhere along the line the film got stuck and the light burned through, leaving us with only the sound of the broken film slapping against the projector. It's the reality of life, that where there are emotions and feelings involved there cannot be such easy repentance, if there is any at all. We must suffer the indignities of our actions regardless of where we are as a result of them. Those we hurt do not grow with us, they do not walk the same path as we do, they are in essence frozen in time while we race on by. You see me as I am at the starting line, even as I pass the half way point of the race.

And where we were before the race turned sour, well its the feeling you can't get back. That look of love in your eyes when you used to look at me. The raw power of lust, the indignant demands for more - all gone in the winds of change that seems to have powered us in much different directions.

I often wonder if I were to die how much you would care. In watching that movie last night, I understood my place in this world with you. I believe there would be more tears of happiness than there would be of sadness in you. You would be free, insurance money to pay things off, the word "widowed" rather than "divorced", and you could move on with you life in the time appropriated. You would not have to share with the world how your marriage failed, but rather how your husband died. You could be free all the way around, with only bad memories of me to keep us distant, for otherwise I would be "gone" in just a matter of moments to you. You could find a fairy-tale romance to keep you warm at night, the sound of a love song playing during the closing credits, the evil bastard gone and the knight in shining armor there to replace him.

No, I don't wish to die...I just wonder what effect that time of my existence would have on those I care about the most. And no, I don't blame YOU for how you feel about ME.

As for me, the feeling will never leave. I will always want you sexually, I will always love you deeply in my heart and soul. I will always want to reach for you in the night, and i will always wish the better part of me didn't come at the expense of the better part of you. I do wish I was there more, in your heart, in your soul, a part of every fabric of your being, that I was the drink you thirsted for, the bread you hungered for, and the air you wished to breathe. Ah, the wishing well this ghost will reside in...

Finally, I wish to share my experiences and mistakes with the world, perhaps it is my calling V. No, I don't wish to do so in a way that harms you or my family, but I do wish to see if such an understanding can help someone. Maybe it's why i have lived the life I have lived, and why I have been given this gift. Please don't take my efforts in this regard as anything, you judge me way too harshly. I don't see attention V, if I did it would certainly not be the kind that points out my weakness. That is NOT the attention I would seek to have. Rather, Cliff had it right, I write these thinks to get me aware (although he said "think", I hardly wish to think about it), and to share that awareness with others. I seek no reward from it, nor do I seek any attention - in this you are wrong.

I think, perhaps, we need to know where we are and were we are heading. As I mentioned before, if there is any hope we need to focus on it. If there isn't, we need not focus at all.

If You Could Read My Mind Love

I know this song bores you stiff, but I can't find a better way of saying how I feel, except that I am not the one who can't get the feeling back. Just please suffer and listen to it for me.

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishin' well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see
If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind that drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take

I'd walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script
Enter number two
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me
But for now love, let's be real
* I never thought I could ACT this way *
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelin's gone
And I just can't get it back

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
'Bout a ghost from a wishin' well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
You'll know that I'm just tryin' to understand
The feelin's that you lack
I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it
I don't know where we went wrong
But the feelin's gone
And I just can't get it back

Attachment to past...

This will be long, so take your Ridalin or Aderol NOW! You have had your warning!!

During a recent life challenge, I faced the rather difficult task of understanding the relationship we share with our past, and was left clearly dominated by a need to become aware of how the path behind us can influence the path ahead of us. I would like to share some of the awareness discovered.

It caused me to ask the question: "does beating oneself up over the past continue the attachment to it?". It was a rhetorical question at first, but seemed born of the recent struggle and the awareness that was created by it. I love struggle and suffering, it truly is the best teacher.

First, let me share with you my understanding of thought. Most of us cling to thought as the mechanism by which we grow, understand, live, make decisions, and basically function. I work to take thought in a much different way (yes, even struggle to reach this destination), and use my life experiences to basically formulate an awareness of thought...and understanding of it that shapes how I approach it, use it and, ultimately, discard it.

Thought, in my understanding, is the noise of the mind. It creates a perception of reality that can enhance the ego's control of that reality. I clouds sound decision making, it magnifies ego, it stands in the way of progress. It simply keeps us from our selves, and from fully enjoying our existence. I certainly can get more into thought and ego if asked, but I have no need to challenge conventional thought in this post, but rather offer this as a basis for explaining the difference in thought and awareness as it relates to my understanding. A mouth full to say the least, some things of spirit just are not easily described with things of form. I guess one way to simply put it is that thought is the explanation of understanding, awareness is the creation of it without thought.

So, in the process of understanding attachment to past and how it controls our present, I needed to have an awareness of the circumstance at hand. This awareness requires an honesty for which thought cannot face. It takes seeing your self in a way that egoic thought will not allow, it takes tears, it takes sweat, and ultimately it takes a devotion to spirit that eliminates the presence of ego. It takes quiet, it takes stillness, it takes the complete absence of thought.

And now the painful part, an honesty for which there is no return. Things on here may be changed to protect others, but ultimately nothing will be changed to protect me, the person or the ego. So, here goes.

I have a propensity to not only have trust issues, but to cause them. I simply make bad decisions or do things that just aren't worthy of trust. My ego takes over, thinks, and then acts in accordance with its perception of reality. Then it changes things to make that perception fit, regardless of how honest or truthful that perception is. My self, that part of me left when ego is stripped away, suffers at the hands of this. The ego jumps for joy while the self cries bitter tears. It is the paradox of a person that is the essence of "beating oneself up", a continual battle between that which is all about form, pleasure and materialism and the self which wants no part of it.

In short, I am a liar...in ego that is simply what I am. This difficult awareness comes at a price but is worth the investment. The only way to end an ego is to shine light on it, and awareness is that light. Ego is a darkness that cannot survive even the slightest beam of light. You just need be willing to turn the light on, which is really the most difficult part.

Once I could see that I am a liar in ego, awareness began to delve into the aspects of this darkness. Now, keep in mind that awareness is not thinking, it is the absence of thought, so one does not pass judgment on what is happening at this moment. Awareness took me back to the pain of my youth, the need to be something so different in order to find the acceptance of others. Awareness shed light on seeing just how untrustworthy my parents were, how lies got them through life. I could see my ego creating the persona that would get me through the day. I could see that need to dominate my surroundings, whether cheating on a girlfriend to break any attachment to emotion, or having sex with a random woman in order to feel accepted, or hurting someone I loved very much because I just could not trust them, the things my ego did while in control simply sickened my self.

Worst of all, there were a handful of people who I honestly loved, people who I counted as those who I would die for if able. I realized that I was completely unable to share this because of my immature attachment to ego. In fact, I turned my back on these people rather than take them in. I feared this feeling, I feared its ownership of the "me" I knew. This "way" began when I was a young child and continued up to the day my wife tearfully told me that this "way" was killing her. At that moment, she turned a light on in me, made me become painfully aware of the "me" that needed to be exposed. At that moment, my self took over for a change, and I understood that my self needed to expose these things that were not only hurting her, but others I love, and yes, even me. The conflict had turned a corner.

That's not to say it was over, man it is far from over even though this event took place years ago. My ego continues to lash out seeking its survival. This takes me to the recent life challenge. It simply was about the past, and how it effects the present. I began questioning whether I wanted to live in the past anymore, whether I wanted to have it control my life. I began to wonder if the "me" people got to know and expect was controlling the "me" I am at this moment. It is a conflict to say the least, it is a nasty battle between now and then, self and ego, light and darkness. But it is a necessary one.

And now to the understanding I have of the initial question. Let me first say that there is no right or wrong answer because ultimately the answer will depend upon where you are at this very moment. If am two blocks behind you in the journey of life, there is simply no way I can see the beauty you see, and you simply cannot see what I am seeing at that moment. But in this understanding is the understanding of the present, this very moment, and the fact that this moment is the purpose of being.

At this moment, I release the past the best I can. I must have no attachment to it, for it is an egoic perception of reality. Perception is a tricky thing, and I often liken it to the circumstance of the moment. To someone who is full and healthy, eating a Big Mac may seem grotesque...but give that same person a circumstance of starvation and they would eat that Big Mac off the dirty sidewalk. It's the moment that is purpose, it is the moment that matters, and it is the moment for which we need to exist.

With this understanding, I become aware of reactions (ego) that are based on the past. They are harmful even if they appear to be good. In this moment there is no past, there is no need to relive it, there is no need to demand its attention or even offer it attention. The past ruins the present by its very existence, and the only way to firmly be in this moment is to relinquish the hold the past has on it.

No, there are no exceptions. And no, this is not to say that lessons learned in the past are not to be used this moment. They just must not own the moment. As a child learns that fire is painful, we now later due to this past experience not to stick our hand in the fire, but we do not use this painful experience to not enjoy a fire's warmth. Yes, there is a difference, and it is up to you and where you are at this moment to figure out where that difference is.

I heard a story once that pretty much sums it up. If you have abused a dog as a puppy, and see it 10 years later it may bite you, but it certainly hasn't thought about it for each of those 10 years. And it probably won't think about it again once you leave the room to get your stitches. The dog has learned from the past, but it certainly does not live in it or for it. And I believe the dog will not be beating itself up for biting the abuser after the event is over.

We must learn from the dog...that this moment is not about the last one, it is about this one. It is the only one we are guaranteed, it is eternity. Enjoy it, allow it to be, and simply embrace all that it offers. Love those you love, open up, and just be. Such freedom is beautiful, and the stillness is deafening. No, it's not easy, but if you love it is a must.

Peace

Time With

If today is but a reflection of time
Spent longing and searching for more,
Would you grasp me and hold me forever
As if you had never known me before?

If I say that pain lasts forever,
That memories are wishes come true,
Would you still hold onto the day that ended the way
That this time with me was cherished by you?

If fate turned today to forever,
With tomorrow an end that we knew
Would you choose to be eternally grateful
If I spent this forever with you?

There just doesn't seem to be enough time
To change the things that I have ruined
Time with.
There just aren't enough ways to say enough times
Or do enough things to end the pain I've spent
Time with.

If memories mold us forever
If the footprints behind choose the path up ahead
What hope do we have in the walking
Perhaps the living are already dead?

We ignore all the love left in passing
Instead it's the pain that we choose,
Yesterday becomes our eternal today
Such comfort where nothing gets soothed.

I just hope today is enough time to know
Enough time to grow beyond the things we kill
Time with
It's just long enough I hope I'll know
How to show my love with those that I spend
Time with.

A night futile

We left, me having been touched more by your friend in one night than I have by you in a year...you a bit tipsy off of beer and noise...me a bit uncomfortable with the outward show of whatever it was that got my head rubbed, my chest caressed, my back touched in a way I am only comfortable with you doing...even if you never feels so inclined. I chalk it up to being thirsty in a desert with only a stranger to give you a glass of water while your lover holds a barrel of the stuff. Maybe that is why I was so uncomfortable with it...I need it, I love it, I want more of it, just not from someone other than you.

We stay up late to watch a cover band, and it leaves me to wonder if this late hour would ever be realized in the quest for sanctification. Would this late hour ever be met in the raw sexual acts of a you and me rather than in the meaningless acts of watching nobodies sing a song we might like. I wonder what the pecking order is for "Things that Will Keep Veronica Up Late" and where our sexual lives fall on that list...if they have even made the list. I wonder why, and whether the bullshit excuses of the past will be called upon to continue the charade. I just don't believe they are the reasons anymore.

Slow-forward to leaving. Exhaustion as set in everywhere but the dance floor. "Let's go dance" would certainly promote much more energy than "let's go fuck", well that is if I could seem to do either this night. Still, I have to marvel in the energy you have to get this motion accomplished, and the energy I am spending on marveling in your seeming lack of fatigue on the dance floor turns to anger at the knowledge that as soon as we leave this place you will be too tired to move. So, is there something about me that makes you so tired? Or is this just the way it is?

Slow walk through a cold early morning to a cold car for a cold ride home. The heater in the car works, it warms the cabin for sure, but the space between us might as well be outside. I wonder, is the first driving blow job coming? Will she pick a dark spot somewhere and say "Let's park there"? Will she surprise me in some way as to say she got what I was saying in the earlier conversation that night? The rules suck. I respect what you don't want to do, but can we please make hay with the shit you are fine with? Your friend tugging at your shirt to get a glimpse of your tits sat fine with you, but it would seem that that action would have violated Section 3, Article 8, Paragraph 2 of the Rule Book. Or at the very least violated some portion of it somewhere. Not this night, with this friend, and I wonder what has given this friend a pass at caressing your husband and trying to get your tits to show.

Could it be acceptance? Could it be you accept her for who she is and still find a way to consider her special? I will need to give this more thought, and it isn't at the top of my priority list.

Well, we made it home without incident. Goodie! We make it to bed, no spontaneous blow job, no indication that me or my dick were anywhere in the consciousness of the only person I wish it to be in...no indication whatsoever that sexuality or even the needs of your husband have a concern. Certainly not in comparison to watching Depeche Mode cover music...now that is worth waiting up for.

I wake up this morning...bored and antsy and angry and frustrated. I hate waking up this way, but I am kind of getting use to it. I guess part of married life does mean that your sexuality falls behind Desperate Housewives on the priority list. That half-joke must be a half-truth. I wonder if I am wasting my final part of my prime years missing a third of what life is supposed to be. I went from being a fairly confident sexual being to a man sure I can't satisfy and do everything wrong. My skin is too harsh, my actions too abrupt, I go up instead of down, I have to work through a plethora of annoyed looks, a wall of long fingers, and set routine and set regiment of stuff. I have to keep in mind the year or so it has been since I have felt I have pleased my wife.

And I am getting sick of the baggage.

I will say that I am only venting here. If you want to know that only thing today that makes me pissy and bitchy there you have it. I can find peace everywhere else in my life, and yet the one place I need depend on someone else for it I find failure. Is the lesson to be learning here that I should not be dependent on anyone else? Is the lesson here that, to borrow some Rolling Stone lyrics, "you can't always get what you want"?

I guess I will learn what this lesson is sooner or later. But for now allow me to vent, to tell you how dreadfully unhappy I am with this part of my life. Now before you get all defensive and attack, I am not interested in your reasons, excuses or need to show me how it is all my fault. I don't care, I just care to get out the anger and frustration without it causing more in me. This is my proverbial beating a tire with a sledge, or more like beating a dead horse. This is nothing new, so I guess this is how life will be. I can now go back to thinking about me in my well-advanced years shaking my head at the waste of this time in my life. It makes me chuckle, if even just a little bit under my breath.

And I will await yet another futile night.

Love

I am at that point
I see over the ledge into the end of nothing
The darkness, pure and hateful
Encompasses all beneath me, all that I surround.

I feel but a faint breeze,
A stirring in the silence that enshrouds me
Such silence that makes this breeze remarkable
But a drop of water is an ocean to a thirsty man.

I reach out for you, you respond
You hold me tightly to your breast,
You give me pause to see but a single point of light
You give me hope to be so much more.

Such light, the darkness fades,
Such warmth, the comfort of this moment,
And I step back from the ledge,
There is no need to seek its prescription.

And I feel love, I feel loved
I am love, I give love,
Such things are never to be forgotten,
Such things are never to be lost.

And as you let go, your smile shall never fade
For it is you, it is love,
It has saved me, it has taught me
And I can never let it go.