181/365 : wishing i could say

The tongue is the organ of taste, and also the organ of speech, said John O'Donohue.

What is the flavor of the words we don't say?
What is the taste of repression?
What is the sensation of freedom of tongue?

I've watched a thousand butterflies explode
from the back of my throat
out the tips of my teeth
into the quilt of sky and trees

I've felt the gong inside my lungs
the gong of emptiness
the gong of emptied-it-all-out
the rippling quiet joy

And I've tasted the hunger of holding back
the withheld lion claws
waiting for some antelope to surrender
feed my hallow courage

I've learned there are no martyrs in nature
Who would sacrifice its life, to feed my fear?

I must hunger for the taste of my own depths
I must hunt myself down
Puncture my silence
Bleed

180/365 : and by faith i mean acceptance, love

things are getting very spiritual over here
i'm asking myself
if i can have faith in my sadness
faith in my death
faith in my heartbreak
as much as i cling
to the water on the rocks
making all the colors more black and gold
all the deepness
a more beautiful horrid empty

179/365 : i'm starting to understand why christians attach to heaven, why jews talk only of hell, why buddhists practice letting go

i like the way this love is drawing me closer to loss
shining brights in my face
like a swerving car
like a late night in the mountains
like a fear of death by animal

actually, i'm lying
i don't know if i like it, at all

178/365 : maybe, maybe not

maybe tomorrow
i won't be so scared
of my humanness

177/365 : the love i want is breaking

the love i want
is confrontational
like Everythingness
like chasing tides
like a dog
like vomiting salt water
like resting in a sweater, hood up
like wobbly yoga, stretching too far
like napping in the car
like remembering
like wishing i didn't have to remember
like learning to let go of my longing
like holding myself through the night
like not fighting where i am
like not trying to understand
like rattling out my fear
like hissing when nobody's near
like hurling
like eyelids shutting soft as horses
like hooves never actually hitting you in the face
as you clean the horse shoe of all that power
even though it's what you've feared the most--
being hit by something powerful
like being with fear
like laughing
like quiet tears
like that
like leaning into that
like rubbing up against that
like finger fucking that
like tongue sucking that
like earlobe grinding that
like asshole tickling that
like soft hair dangling against bare chesting that
like hands grab and squeezing that
like pulling that in
like holding it with all your strength
like hurting with desire for the Everythingness
like so much endless fear of nothing
like still needing the Something anyway
like fuck fuck fuck FUCK
i wish i didn't love you this much
like i wish i didn't know you were gonna leave earth first
like i wish i could hold onto a belief that i'm not alone
but loving you this much
and grieving you
before you're even gone
makes me certain that i hate
the heartbreak
of being mortal

176/365 : Not Something I'm Prepared To Do

Maybe pleasure is

A laugh, a disappearing

Fear, a forgetting.

How deep must your forgetting 

Go, to get to your remembrance?

Maybe pain forgets 

Nothing. Holds every ache like

A starving child.

Except, not even. Because 

Starving forgets for survival's sake.

Maybe something wild

Out of left field (like god?)

Can help me deal with

The possibility that

I might have to love your suffering.

Funny, at first I 

Thought maybe god could help you

Feel less pain, as if

You're the one who needs god and

This "god" thing can take away pain.

I wrote once a tiny 

Prayer, "To crack all the 

Way open. To give everything

Away." Now I know better

Than to think myself powerless.

Maybe love is the 

Real ish we all wish would come

Hold us, on nights when 

Pleasure is a trickster tale

And hurt is an answered prayer.

I wish I could be 

the carriage for that love 

The pumpkin that ushers

Her in, the shoe, the romance,

The dance, the dance, the dance. I 

Feel so stupidly 

Romantic, as if romance

Is dumb, as if it 

Never saves the day, as if

Betting on love is naive.

As if betting on any

Thing is unenlightened. Fuck 

Enlightenment. I want 

Attachment that saves. I want 

You to want to stay alive.

I want you to feel what I 

Feel because that is 

How I feel myself, through you. 

Otherwise I might 

Disappear, and that is not 

Something I'm prepared to do.

175/365 : truthity truth

today i took four seventeen minute naps
in the gaps between eye gazing
and truth blazing
matchbook sessions

today i dreamt of my loves
one slumber at a time
felt the crevices of my mind
reshape into smiles

today i stretched into miles of meditation
in one quiet breath

today i managed to feel rested
even as i worked

today i feared that my sleepy fearlessness
made me careless
and not good enough
to impress the souls i spoke to

today i forgot in the darker corners of my dreams
that it doesn't matter all that much
who i impress
we're all
gonna be gone
in a poof
so soon

today johnny told me
that scientists say
the first human to live to 150
is probably already alive

the lifespan of humans has tripled
over the last 200 years
and there's no reason why
it won't triple again in the next

i wasn't scared when he told me
because his bright blue eyes
and healthy grin stretched wide
boiled a hope in my belly
i didn't know could grow there

but now, in my bedroom
well, now... i'm remembering
that hope i felt then
and i'm wondering
why moments ago
i felt so scared
to live past 87

so much of my fear comes down to matter

wrinkles
who will feed me?
who will need me when i'm old in america?
who will want me?
how will i possibly want myself?

i can't imagine not needing
the feelings i feel like i need now

but then again

last night, chris fixed my broken down car
and after, we sat inside it
and talked about the disappearance of ideas
the evaporation of romance
the glory depth of exactly what's between us
now

and now, it feels like us humans are gonna have to get better
at what comes after romance
at loving what's left in the room swept clean of delusion
(not that we can ever get it all)

but still
i've got all these relationships
swimming speckled in the light of truth
there are so many wrinkles
and even more stories
and every day we are feeling beneath them
for the chord of connection
and it's so fucking beautiful
so fucking beautiful
that even wrinkles
or not kissing
or nothing romantic developing
or breaking the rules about
what the world tells me is a suitable way to love
feel tiny
so fucking tiny
next to the infinite rhythm
of my strong beating heart