Take Yourself on Date

Learn how to truly be yourself; go to lunch, get coffee, go and watch a movie, alone and understand that there is no
need to feel lonely . Take it as an opportunity to learn more about yourself. Fall in love with yourself and
romanticise everything you do. The way your voice changes when you ask a shopkeeper, cinema attendant,
waiter or any other person of vague authority for something. The way you bite the inside of your cheek when you are nervous.
They way you feel the heat in your cheeks rising with the cool sides of your hands.
Become enamoured with the little habits and idiosyncrasies that are only noticed by someone who loves you.

Let it Enfold You

Either peace or happiness,

let it enfold you

When I was a young girl

I felt these things were

dumb, unsophisticated.

I had bad blood, a twisted

mind, a precarious

upbringing

I was hard as granite, I 

leered at the

sun.

I trusted no woman and

especially no

man.

I was living a hell in

amm rooms, I broke

things, smashed things,

walked through glass,

cursed.

I challenged evrything,

was continually being

evicted , jailed , in and 

out of fights, in and out

of my mind.

men were something

to screw and rail

at , I had no female

friends.

I changed jobs and

cities, I hated holidays,

babies, history,

newspapers, museums,

grandmothers,

marriage, movies,

spiders, garbagemen,

english accents, spain,

france, italy, walnuts and

the colos

orange.

algebra angred me,

opera sickened me,

charlie chaplin was a

fake

and flowers were for

pansies.

peace and happiness to me

were signs of 

inferiority,

tenants of the weak

and

addled

mind.

but as I went on with

my alley fights,

my suicidal years,

my passage through

any number of

women-it gradually

began to occur to 

me

that I wasn’t different

from the

others, I was the same,

they were all fulsome

with hatred,

glossed over with petty

grievances,

the men I fought in

alleys had hearts of stone.

everybody was nudging,

inching, cheating for

some insignificant

advantage,

the lie was the

weapon and the

plot was 

empty,

darkness was the

dictator.

cautiously, I allowed

myself to feel good

at times.

I found moments of

peace in cheap

rooms

just staring at the

knobs of some

dresser

or listening to the

rain in the

dark.

the less I needed

the better I

felt.

maybe the other life had worn me

down.

I no longer found

glamour

in topping somebody

in conversation.

or in mounting the

body of some poor

drunken female

whose life had

slipped away into

sorrow.

I could never accept

life as it was,

i could never gobble

down all its

poisons

but there were parts,

tenuous magic parts

open for the

asking.

I re formulated

I don’t know when,

date, time, all

that 

but the change

occured.

something in me

relaxed, smoothed

out.

i no longer had to

prove that I was a

man,

I didn’t have to prove

anything.

I began to see things:

coffee cups lined up

behind a counter in a

cafe.

or a dog walking along

a sidewalk.

or the way the mouse

on my dresser top

stopped there

with its body,

its ears,

its nose,

it was fixed,

a bit of life

caught within itself

and ts eyes looked 

at me

and they were

beautiful.

then-it was

gone.

I began to feel good,

I began to feel good

in the worst situations

and there were plenty 

of those.

like say, the boss

behind his desk,

he is going to have

to fire me.

I’ve missed too many

days.

he is dressed in a

suit, necktie, glasses,

he says,’ I am going

to have to let you go’

‘it’s all right’ I tell

him.

He must do what he

must do, he has a 

wife, a house, children,

expenses , most probably

a girlfriend.

I am sorry for him

he is caught.

I walk  onto the blazing

sunshine.

the whole day is

mine

temporarily,

anyhow.

(the whole world is at the

throat of the world,

everybody feels angry,

short-changed, cheated,

everybody is despondent,

disillusioned)

I welcomed shots of

peace, tattered shards of

happiness.

I embraced that stuff

like the hottest number,

like high heels, breasts,

singing, the

works.

(don’t get me wrong,

there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism

that overlooks all

basic problems just for 

the sake of

itself-

this is a shield and a

sickness.)

The knife got near my

throat again

I almost turned on the 

gas

again

but when the good 

moments arrievd 

again

I didn’t fight them off

like an lley 

adversary.

I let them take me,

I luxuriated in them,

I made them welcome

home.

I even looked into

the mirror

once having thought

myself to be

ugly,

I now liked what

I saw,almost

handsome, yes,

a bit ripped and 

ragged,

scares, lumps,

odd turns,

but all in all,

not all in all

not too bad,

almost handsome,

better at least than

some of those movies

star faces

like the cheeks of

a baby’s

butt.

and finally I discovered

real feelings of

others,

unheralded,

like lately,

like this morning,

as I was leaving,

for the track,

I saw my wife in bed,

just the 

shape of 

her head there

(not forgetting

centuries of the living

and the dead and 

the dying,

the pyramids,

Mozart dead

but his music still

there in the

room, weeds growing,

the earth turning,

the tote board waiting for 

me)

I saw the shape of my 

wife’s head,

she so still,

I ached for her life,

just being there

under the

covers.

I kissed her in the

forehead,

got down the stairway,

got outside,

got into my marvelous

car,

fixed the seatbelt,

backed out the

drive.

feeling warm to 

the fingertips,

down to my

foot on the gas

pedal,

I entered the world

once

more,

drove down the 

hill

past the houses

full and empty

of people,

I saw the mailman,

honked,

he waved

back 

at me.

Pain

The pain will hold on gently

As you move throughout your day

You’ll try to shake it softly

But quickly learn it wants to stay

It lingers in the corner 

It follows you around

Juts when you think you’ve lost it

You learn no solace can be found

So here’s a trick, I’ve learned a few

For me and pain, we’re good old friends

And pain’s afraid of love, you see

Because love, it always mends

So openup your eyes a bit

Inhale deep and strong

Look for the twinkle of loves presence

That surrounds you all day long

It could be here, it could be there

A thought, a mile, a gift

Look for the love in every moment

And your pain will start to shift

Just start small, and whynot now

Find something good to think of

Pain will shy away, you’ll see

When what you focus on is love

And bit by bit , you’ll chip away

At that old block you now call pain

And when you’re finished chipping

You’ll find that pain has a new name

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stodd

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood  and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plum the hazel shells

with a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has O’er-brimm’d their dammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft -lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sond asleep,

Drow’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden  head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too–

While barred douds bloom the soft- dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a willful choir the small fnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Roses

I’ve always admired roses

But not for their color

There’s something about them

That I haven’t yet discovered

Yet everyone tells me

That I’m looking into deep

That it is just a flower 

Just a little prize you can keep

But yet there is something special

About the roses that you see

And It’s not about the petals

It’s about the thorns to me

It puzzles me how something

So beautiful and rare

Can cut you so deep

And you wouldn’t even care

Ringing

If you’ve listened close to silence,

I’m sure that you have heard,

The gentle constant ringing,

In the space between two words,

When you really pay attention,

You find it’s not just in your head,

But instead is whispers of the words,

The world has left unsaid,

It’s ” I love you” left unspoken,

And a mothers last goodbye,

That she never had the chance to say,

As she watched her daughter die,

It’s forgiveness never given,

And a “sorry” left too late,

That would have saved a best friends life,

If they’d known it could not wait,

It’s a phrase that could have helped them,

And it’s secrets that could heal,

It’s words from those too scared to say,

The truth of how they feel,

But you have an advantage,

For you’re still alive to speak,

Words that could help save a life,

Or give strength to someone weak,

So many you never leave unspoken,

Words the whole world ought to hear,

Before they just become the ringing,

In another person’s ear

Finish Line

When i was little, i used to watch raindrops sliding down the care window. i thought that perhaps they were racing to get across the finish line. i noticed the way the idle droplets were rescued by their brothers colliding into them and propelling them forward.

now that i’m older , i watch people . and i wonder why we are all still pretending that we don’t need others to nudge us to keep moving forward when we get a little stuck along this journey we call life.

Feel Alive

I remember sitting on the swing in our backyard when i was eight years old, thinking about how strange it was that i wouldn’t remember that exact moment in a few months. Eleven years later & perhaps the irony of it all is how clear that memory still is for me.

i think about it often not sitting on the swing but just the messiness of memories and how at any given time, we can exist in a thousand different places just by brushing up against other lives.

it’s a scary and beautiful thing, don’t you think? there are things we have said and done that are so easily forgotten, but somewhere, in some mind, they are remembered.

i wonder about all the things i am. how in some stories i may be the conflict and in others, the resolution. how i might be nothing more than the girl who ordered a flat white with one sugar but even still, i exist outside of this body and isn’t that incredible?

we are not just living , we are painting memories . how could we not feel alive?

Relationship

                   He works.

                   She works.

                they split bills.

            his hobbies are video games.

        her hobbies are reading and facebook.

         he leaves her alone to her hobbies.

         she leaves her alone to her hobbies.

at night time they watch illegally downloaded movies together

                or stream one on netflix.

                 she makes him a sandwich.

                  he gives her a back rub.

     they joke about how the people they know ae stupid.

       he tells her about how annoying her friends are.

          she tells him how annoying his friends are.

                    they laugh together.

                 then they have amazing sex.

  days off are spent surfing the web together , playing games together.

      or occasionally going outside to do stuff like:

          get coffee and make fun of strangers.

     eat together at restaurants that have a cool atmosphere.

                    go mini-golfing.

                    go to the movies.

    she surprises him with an occasional blowjob in the morning

    and he returns the favor followed by cooking breakfast.

    he surprises her byy letting her play a video game with him.

        and she responds by whooping his ass at it.

         they respect one another or get jealous

               they trust each other.

 have cute arguments like who’s turn it to do the dishes or

     what answers don’t count in scattergoires.

               they’re a team. A club.

      a 2 person gang that nobody else is allowed to join

               it’s them vs everyone else