Once a year or so, I pull up a saved Facebook post from a lady who I barely knew growing up and read her 216 words she wrote the week my stepmother, Louise, died. It always makes me cry, and I can’t figure out why. But I need tears more than I need answers, so I give those words to my heart whenever I feel it.
Louise was a real character. She was a rough and tumble biker chick who knew how to not take any shit from anyone. Before she shacked up with my dad, she used to hang out with the Hell’s Angels and was known to even be seen on the back of Sonny Berger’s bike from time to time. Now I am not saying that makes me Jax Teller or anything, but I’ll be damned if I don’t feel cooler sometimes knowing I was in part raised by someone who knew she was part of such infamous legendry.
Sometime in her late teens, she and a few other ladies in her sisterhood got into a terrible accident resulting in oil burns across their bodies. I knew these scars well, both on my stepmom and some of her sisters, for we frequented swimming holes as a kid, and those splashes of terribly warped flesh were there for all to see in their swimsuits. They were all broken people, sure, but they had started with some kind of deep inner strength that kept them proud even having been torn from the ranks of “beautiful young women” far too early. Something in them was so unyielding they knew they were still sexy even though there was evidence to the contrary.
And the men around them, broken and strong too, the men such as my dad, preferred their women like this. Someone who could take a beating and still show up for the party. Someone who could look trauma in the eye and give it a coke-trembling grin while they tried to choke something worth having from the tyranny of tragedy that was their life. A life that hunted them like a beast, and took everything it could from them the moment they let their guard down.
I hear she died still devoted to her excess, still trying to find the party in the war. I remember the last few times I spent with her, years before she passed, before she and my dad broke it off for the last time. As a kid, it was just do my chores , go play, and leave her alone to read the day away. But eventually, I was a young adult, and she and I could talk about the books we had in common. We’d talk about riding dragons with Anne McCaffrey and being vampires with Anne Rice. She had a wall of fantasy books that I could draw from. Something I will always be grateful for.
I remember one time when she and my dad were fighting, which was the usual, she said something awful about my dad to me, something I don’t quite recall but certainly was aimed at reducing his manhood to nothing. It didn’t phase me because I guess I don’t care what others think of my dad (he doesn’t seem to either). But I cared about Louise, and so I said gently, “if ever it would help for you to talk about it, just let me know.” She didn’t seem to care at the moment, rightly so, so I turned to go, but then, “hey,” she said, so I turned back. “You’re a good one Gabe.” I said thanks, and meant it, but was sad because I knew this meant we would never talk about what was really going on.
And she faded from my life like that. She gave me so much. She showed me how to be proud and strong, even with a mangled body. She once told me she was proud of me because I was the only one of “her kids” to make it into college. She had been a part of raising quite a few kids from different men. I didn’t have the heart to tell her when I had dropped out.
And so I read those 216 words, and I cry. But today, I finally know why I cry. I cry because while I told Louise, “I love you” all the time, I never told her what I really wanted to. What I meant to say was thank you, Louise, for being one of the few who could ever understand me. For showing me that broken and strong is possible.
The broken and strong don’t tell each other with words how to do it, we stand up and show you.

     I see him every afternoon. Muscled calves flexing in the sun as he lunges across the court. Return the ball or flash a smile. It’s all blinding. The allure. Concentration of effort. Pure and pinpointed. Crushing.
    Unaware of my gaze. Maybe.
    Now that I think of it, he could be watching me, too.
    It gets so I don’t have to use my eyes.  I can feel his movements; taste the sweat trickling through golden hairs on the side of his neck. Back and forth. Baiting the hook. Tracking. Tracking. I stay focused on the game, engaged and tracking. As my pulse races and my undershorts grow damp.
    The perfect L of the vastus intermedius (times 2!), and the one, crooked incisor – they’re like catnip. I want to roll on my back and wriggle; purr and claw and bite. …Which only hones my resolve.
    Oblivious to females at first glance. At least he’s curious. The females watch him, and feel the catnip. It make their hips wiggle, too.  I see it. The males write him off as a dreamer, a dork. There is no place for such beauty in their pantheon – or for such remove.
    Hard to pin down. Hard to define. A hard man is good to fine. And enjoy.
    I walk to the net and stand. The sun bright and brassy, like every other mid-valley afternoon. Distant sounds of splashing in the pool and birds chirping in the parched trees. His white clothes stretching delicious over tanned skin, and balls scattered at court edges.
    My undershorts need a tug. Shoelaces need a pull. I feel my heart beat, steady, and my eyes take in everything, without moving. I stand, transfixed. Motionless. Love swelling in my breast. Like a bird, pinned in the crosshairs, knowing its goose is cooked.
He’s somewhere beyond my peripheral vision. He’s not all the way grown yet. But he’s big. And strong enough to take down. His father. Or me.  Lion cub with lethal paws, innocent, kills without intending. Trying to figure it out.
I turn my head and smile. Not aware until it’s too late. That I’m the one who’s been hunted, and bagged.

I am lost to this world. All is spinning around, I’m disoriented and falling backwards in the
abyss. Nothing to hold on to, all is slipping and sliding through my fingers like sand. Sinking
in the vortex, sick in what I think is my stomach, the whirlwinds are swallowing me whole.
The last thing I remember, I had my hands on the ridge, hanging from the big flat rock, my
fingerprints must still be on the stone. I don’t know what happened. Now wind blowing in my
ears, going on and on. Stark smell of metal or blood and a roaring I’ve never heard before.
And it is dark all around.
Is this the belly of the beast? The end of times? The new world?
There is nothing and nothingness. Just darkness and falling and roaring. I strain to curl my
body into a fetus, my head in my arms. I still have a body, a body that is moving with
unbelievable speed.
Where am I? Who am I? What the fuck! How long has this been going on? How is this going
to end? I try and stretch my body, spread my arms and legs like I am flying.
I am flying in a way, just dropping with enormous speed too. I move my arms back and
stretch my legs and I seem to be moving forward somewhat. It’s hard to tell, because of the
vast darkness. Then I realise my eyes are shut hard. When I try to open them just a tiny bit, I
understand why. The wind of the speed is cutting in them so painfully, that it’s impossible to
open them.
Fuck me! What the fuck is happening? The dizziness is overwhelming and I feel nauseated.
Then the light flashes start, violent luminescent blue, like lightning in my eyes. My brain feels
like it’s splitting open. Unbearable pain everywhere.
Then all of a sudden all is still. Like I slashed through a veil into another world. Whiteness
everywhere and divine silence. All sound has stopped in this instant.
It’s like I’m in a world made of snow, all white and silent, but not cold. It’s like there is no
temperature. If anything it is pleasant. I’m not falling anymore. If I even still have a body, it is
floating like mist.
There is clarity, so much clarity about what is. I am this.

I want my mind back! What did I think about before this hideous pandemic? It's kind of like when I was pregnant, all I could think about was wow there is a baby in my womb. And all day long I'd be in baby land. Or when I had breast cancer and all I could think about was how can I heal, I want to live. Or when I had fantastic sex after a long dry spell and all my mind would do all day long is go back to particular moments; the hair pulling , the strategic bite, the breathing, on and on.
In the past the baby was born, the cancer was cured and the lover faded away. I want my mind back!
But this pandemic seems to change everything. I wake up heart pounding and all day it's there. I meditate and pray and exercise but it's still there. I try to be vigilant at night but it is still looming.
God help our planet, God help us please. I want my mind back!
It's so frustrating how unprepared out country is. The USA had time to start to prepare. To recommend social distancing in January not March. To give incentives to companies to make masks and protecting clothing for hospital workers, and even get the public prepared for closures. But human nature seems to prefer denial. It won't come to America. We are invincible. But it came and it's bloody scary and it isn't going away any time soon. WE are all vulnerable. We could be carriers, we could get sick, we could die .
I want my mind back! I want to think happy thoughts, see friends smile and do kind things for each other in person. I want to think about what to bring to the next pot luck, or how I can help a friend in need or maybe even fantasize about seeing that lover again.
I want my mind back! So please everyone wear a mask, do social distancing, stay home as much as possible, take vitamin C and D and immune boosters. Thank you everyone for all the fun things you post and the information on how to stay safe. I want this pandemic to be over sooner than later I love everyone and want you to be safe. Then I can have my mind back.

In the old days, we used to make long journeys across desperate terrains. We would bundle our dreams upon our backs and put one foot in front of the other as we made our way through landscapes that threatened our every move. We knew very little except that we did not want to be where we once were, and that we were sure there was somewhere else we wanted to be, if we could but get through this place of dangerous passage. Surrounded by Indians, we pressed on.

Now don’t get all flustered about my use of the word “Indians.” I got it on very strong, heard it from a white guy who heard it from a white guy who heard it from a white guy who wrote it in a book before the age of fact-checking hearsay that what Columbus really meant was “una gente in Dios,” or the people in God and that “in Dios” eventually became “Indians.” So that it is actually a really beautiful name for a people. Oh wait, I just googled that urban legend and it turns out to be bullshit. So much for beauty. Surrounded by white colonialists and historical revisionists, we pressed on.

And so here is where we got. All that talk of Dios pushed us from coast to coast, leaving fields of bloody self-entitlement in our wake and a deep lineage of coverups and self-denying bypass that leave everyone at least a little fucked up in the head and more than a few of us shit out of luck when it comes to knowing where we come from.

Myself, I was born in a stolen land, by the side of a beautiful river where it becomes one with another river and they carry on like they were never two. Well, I would say it is beautiful, inspiring a way forward even, and that it gives me a sense of belonging to somewhere, but we already established that beauty only comes from lies and that belonging is not something we are entitled to since our forefathers took it from everyone else. Surrounded by rapists, we pressed on.

So this is what we get. A mess of a situation filled with resentment and pain. I got more than enough good intention to convince myself I am one of the good guys, but when you pull the curtains of social order aside I am just another low ranking white devil, trying to make my way through this hell realm we call capitalism and only having a decent life because of the privilege my skin, my balls, and my location give me. It certainly isn’t of my own doing that anything good is coming of it.

But it could be. Surrounded by honesty, maturity, and possibility, we press the fuck on.

I’ve never been a virgin   running like blood
down my pointer and middle finger
down the palm of my hand   down my wrist
threading scarlet trails through life line
popping like a gun between teeth
milking my jaw   crackling in my ears
squirting like cum   down my throat
across my tongue   over my lips
pausing 
at the sides of my mouth   onto my chin
then wiped with the back of my hand
I skip 
skipping feels cool   to my spots
favorite hangs in the park   swinging on swings
I like to get high   braced in tunnels
I like drugs    I’m not here for them
now is the time for the ritual
sucking on the fruit of the dead
on the life giving seeds   like a zombie reborn
offering it to others   like a sprung virgin
having faith   like a holy mystery
our lady of pomegranate
holding it like a crown
of abundance   of fertility   of good fortune
a mystical experience really 
on paintings and coins
in lovers dreams and attractive words
the decadence of kernel
rolling between my fingers   snapping off bites
scraping them through my teeth
then going in like a vampire for a deep plunge
popping them like a jack in the box
some people are intimidated by them
some people don’t eat the seeds
some people don’t know what’s good for them
childhood   comfort   rebellion   sexy   offering
​communing   sacrificing   indulging   meat
I’ve never been a virgin
my blood runs cold   
my legs spread open   
my eyes closed
I place another seed in my mouth 
and feel it grow

What a blessing is this rain! After so much time of drought and gritting teeth, finally
everything gets washed out clean. Delicious pouring sheets of rain slashing down,
on the rooftops, the deck, the garden and the streets. Rivers of water are forming at
the sides of the streets, running down to lower grounds. The sloshing sound of
soaked grass, dripping gutters and newly formed little rivers.
What a blessing is this rain! The glistening of drops and the big wet banana leaves
and the shimmering windows. An ocean of transparency almost like an underwater
world. Everything is connected with wetness, no exceptions. We are the same
matter, fluid and mingling and flowing. We can lavish ourselves in this lush wealth of
water and the blessing of the rebirth of life.
What a blessing is this rain! We need to wash ourselves from what is too much. Too
much worry and too much greed and too much anxiety. Wash away the fears and
struggles and just let go what was yesterday's mess. This rain brings new life, new
juice and new sparkles. We are here now, newly born, like a wet baby chick coming
out of the egg. All around is being reborn, shaped anew like the embryo swimming in
it's sack of fluids.
What a blessing is this rain! We needed this so much. Do you even remember how
your wheels of motion were stuck with rasping and grinding sand and how you could
not get ahead? How frustrating were the jarred engines and the rusted hinges of the
ever stuck doors? The squealing screeches of metal, bend beyond repair. Everything
gets refreshed now, oiled and sprayed richly with W40. Fluency is the new mode.
Feel and listen to the easy click of doors opening up around you now, automatically
and silent, like they aren’t even there.
What a blessing is this rain! Let’s bring it all out. Al that needs renewal and all that
can be flushed out. Let it run through the gutters and into the drains and away
through the sewer system. Let’s enjoy this cleanse and soak ourselves inside and
out. For this feast of water brings us back to who we are: everlasting souls in a one
and only present. Residing in transparent and clean matter. We are washable and
ever renewable! Let’s rinse in this blessed water and start over now!

A kind of peace comes over the planet
a little bit of breath for the earth
As the mountain gets covered by the cloud 
As the breath gets taken away from its people
maybe they will not cut as many trees today
maybe they will not drill so deep today
maybe a bit of the fog gets filtered and lifted today
Today today today, I pray for it
In my words, in my actions, in my gut, and heart
I try and not add to the confusion
I try and soften the blow, 
All over the globe people stop
open their eyes to the pure essence of life and death,
where nature gets the upper hand.
And sickness can suck the economy dry 
But I awoke today feeling more alive 
And i awoke today with an open mind
I awoke today feeling a little lighter
I don't want to be misunderstood
but I will be
i don't like to be misunderstood
but I will be 
I do know one thing, is that I always mean well
I make an effort to see the other side
and try to make peace in the end. 
I want to be loved as much as the next guy
and I want them to feel loved as well. 
Love is a gift, that we all can give
I wish we would all give it more often than we do
it is there to spread around
The exposed heart is a sponge to be filled and squeezed
Pore over the planet this love great spirit, would ya
Scrape the bottom and bring up the good
Weed out the evil that brings the rest down
Would ya
Great spirit, Im only a small soul, doing the best that I can
One of the many who exist in this way
Maybe add a bit of love to the soup of life as we know it
Maybe give a little more than I take on some occasions
Maybe take a little more than I give sometimes
But try try as I do, to add a little more good

Are priorities the priority right now? Am I addicted to movement?
and entertainment? can I not entertain my self enough anymore
To keep It interesting.
Interesting  is how familiar my surroundings are, 
yet I can notice more depth and color each and every time I stop long enough to look, 
to feel the world around me and let it all in. 
There are strong urges that makes me pick up the guitar
oh but I can not sing, 
There are inspirations that makes me want to go climb a mountain, 
oh but I am injured. 
How much thinking does it take to think a masterpiece? 
So I indulge my senses, all the visuals, all the music, keep listening and looking and dancing, and run. 
Feel the heart beat, all my emotions, until I cry once again, 
for the love of the land for the crisp woven  words being sung in my ears
for the ideas that come out of genius, 
recorded and mastered to live forever in the hearts and souls of all who care to listen. 
The world can tune in, or tune out, tuning fork of abundance and scorn, 
of wild nights, and weary souls, of little things and ribbons, and bombings, and sirens in the night, 
and flowers in the springtime and the baby birds in the nest, 
The papayas in the trees and the plants that need me in their pots like a lions in a cage, 
like the sick tigers in the zoo, and all that makes no scene, in the scheme of it all.
I feel. 
I feel The electricity through the wires that run all the way to Hana, 
the hospital beds that are lined up in the east
I knew there was a reason why I kept heading west. 
For the lives that are saved and the ones that are dead
For the loved and the hated and the evil the lurks, and I bend and I sway to the world as it turns
And I feel all the pain in my back and pain in my organs as they work so hard
Like intended. 
Is it all for the sake of my descendants to come
Will I live long enough to see my sons daughter give birth?
Will I live long enough to see the whole 
World explode, will I smile when I die.