Monday, June 30, 2014

"2099"

(re-write of "1999", by prince)

I was dreamin' when i wrote this
Forgive me if it goes astray
But when i woke up this mornin'
I'd slept the century away

The sky was perfect blue
No ozone problem anywhere
And everybody's naked
Ain't nobody seems to care

'Cause they say twenty one zero zero
Party startin', no one watchin' time
So tonight i'm gonna party like it's 2099

I was dreamin' when i wrote this
No god or money anywhere
Everybody watchin' the kids
Yeah everyone knows how to share
Peace is all around us
Drums are thumpin' on the left and right
And no one's gettin' drunk
Only hypnotized by bonfirelight

They say twenty one zero zero
Party startin', no one watchin' time
So tonight we're gonna party like it's 2099

If you ain't here to get naked
Don't bother knockin' on my door
Kangaroo got a pocket
But people don't need one no more
Everybody huggin' and humpin'
We could all die any day
So if that's gonna happen
Let's dance this life away

They say twenty one zero zero
Party startin', no one watchin' time
So tonight we're gonna party like it's 2099
Twenty one zero zero
Party startin', no one watchin' time
So tonight we're gonna party like it's 2099
2099
Don't ya want to go
2099
Don't ya want to go
2099

Sunday, June 29, 2014

no man kind

Can we be forgiven
our sins against whale
The descent of "mankind"
A bloody, blind tale

Can we be forgiven
our sins against neighbor
To redress such wrongs
Beyond herculean labor

Can we be forgiven
our sins against daughter
Each newborn babe
contracted into slaughter

Can we be forgiven
our sins against self
Or consecrate humanity
to history's shelf

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

tawdry

I bike over a nearby bridge, and imagine hurling myself thither.
I arrive home, and imagine tying weights to myself and sliding into the canal.
It is a sadness that suicide is not a more common topic of conversation and debate in this world. If any world ever needed more dialogue on the subject, it is surely ours. But we avoid such talk, as most of us avoid even thinking about it, because suicide goes to the heart of the most primal human fear. This fear is so overriding that we treat death with superstitious aversion, and the mere thought of voluntarily dying turns our brains into misfiring muck. Our culture projects this death fear so thoroughly, that we can only perceive suicide as an act of cowardice.
Nor is that fear entirely irrational. Every last piece of available objective evidence points to one conclusion - death is the end of life. To believe anything else is like calling gravity a lie.
Could gravity be a lie? Of course. But imagine how hard it would be to get converts to the "lie of gravity" cult. Selling life after death is so obvious, it's tawdry. And easy...just as the "lie of gravity" would be an easy sell if humanity's most elemental fear was falling. You'd have gravity-confounders on every corner! What would a gravity-confounding steeple look like?
Or imagine how far you'd get selling the notion that clams have a soul. I promise you, no one ever went broke overestimating human vanity.
But lost in all that is the reality that for many, suicide is far and away the bravest thing they might ever do. How could it be otherwise, knowing our most basic fear?
Sifting through suicide statistics for meaning can be daunting. Women have a higher attempt rate, men a higher success rate. That's nothing, just a relic of a dying era where women are trained to be rescued and "men" are trained to succeed (without emotion).*
90% of suicides are due to mental illness? A spurious bit of partial research cranked out by a well-meaning society with a woefully inadequate understanding of mental health. This statistic allows us to hold on to the illusion of "us/them". Us/them? Is there anyone naive enough to suppose that a majority of people HAVEN'T thought about committing suicide at some point in their lives? Anyone that naive? Anyone? Hello? Why are we not more bothered by the fact that most people have thought about killing themselves? Because if we allowed ourselves to be bothered, we'd have to ask some very hard questions about our most basic beliefs and institutions.
Winter holiday suicides? A myth. Suicides peak during spring and early summer.
The global suicide rate is up 60% in the last 45 years? A lot of that is due to the fact that suicide has long occupied a prominent place - in humanity's closet. A few countries still report NO suicide...which tells you all you need to know about accurate reporting. However, the fact that youth suicide is increasing at a faster rate than any other demographic indicates that that 60% figure isn't just about social stigma. Nor is it about teen angst - within another generation or two, suicide could become the number one cause of death among ALL humans in the 15-45 age range. Clearly, something is going on.
Cranky conservatives will tell you it's because society is going to hell in a handbasket...that racial equality, women's lib, homosexuals, legalized pot, and nudists are tearing this world apart.
And they're right.
Not in the myopic way they intend, of course. But humanity in general is going through revolutionary times. Notions of universal democracy, human rights, the rejection of poverty, tolerance for people who don't believe as you do...these are radical upheavals in our species' history. And at a basic level, suicide rates will always be lower the more stable one's society. When everyone "knows their place", fewer people kill themselves (or others). So yes, things are getting uglier...and it might get worse before it gets better. The human race is awakening from a nightmare of repression, exploitation, and brutality that's lasted for thousands of years. It can't happen overnight. But the more obvious our society's pain, the sooner things will change - for good. Greater social freedom is a wonderful thing, but with people unclear about "who" they are, plus the lack of emotional and financial security incumbent in a society in which nothing is free, plus the profound sense of isolation we all think is "normal", you have a cocktail that often ends at the end of a rope.
I had an insight recently into how sad suicide notes are. Not just sad, but again...tawdry. And before i substantiate that, i'll allow for exceptions - notes which absolve others of blame, or such. But i suspect that most suicide notes amount to little more than emotional pleading...the same nonsense we project every day of our lives, in one form or another. In this world, the fulfillment of our most basic needs (love, sustenance, and security) is so tenuous that we spend our lives trying to convince others that we're deserving. Living in a culture of individuality gone overboard (i.e. a culture of celebrity), our egos get wrapped up into it too. The only currencies this world respects are success, beauty, and money. The more of those one has, the more stroking and security one gets, so we spend our lives reinforcing our own egotistic self-mythologies, desperately trying to get others to agree with our self-image. Relationships become little more than codependent truces in which all parties agree to bolster each other's notions.
As for my own suicide...
It has a lot to do with what the buddha called "removing the veil". People who are able to peel away the layers of bullshit we accumulate by the time we're adults...the prejudice, the vanity, the desensitization...to see the world for what it is, such people are rare. And most of them at some point probably make a conscious choice to go on living, or not.
I have never felt more keenly the absence of a veil between myself and the world. I feel centuries beyond my own time. And along with that understanding has grown my respect for those who take their own life...not as an exercise in self-aggrandizement, trying to grip other peoples' emotions in death like they never could in life, but simply through the realization that we live in a world of staggering barbarism, to such an extent that it requires no small amount of perverse denial to even endure. Objectively, this world is NOT worth living. The more one understands how cut off from our own most basic humanity we've become, the more obvious that conclusion is.
I haven't been held intimately in thirteen months, my bank account reveals that i'm $410 away from having no shelter or food, and every day i am forced to endure a world where people treat each other brutally.
Even family.
Even lovers.
Even when they're smiling.
That's not to say that my suicide will come now, or ever. Hope refuses to easily die. Nor do i have any afterlife delusions to sweeten the pill of death. That said, i've come to a gentle respect for those who correctly assess that this world we've created is no fit place for any healthy creature, and without a whisper of complaint or coercion, remove themselves therefrom.
So if you should chance upon someone contemplating suicide, try offering friendship rather than fixing. In the midst of their misery, they might just be experiencing the most clear-thinking moment of their life.
I love you all.
I know how empty those words are to those who are suffering.
Nonetheless...
I do.

*Okay, there's a little more to it. The era humanity is leaving is a patriarchal one, wherein life is harder for women in every measurable way. Ergo, women have more motivation to want to end life.

Friday, June 20, 2014

no human worth

Nothing you know
Nothing you owe
My existence erased
So i go

Nothing to see
Nothing to flee
This life negated
You are free

Nothing to mourn
No guilt or scorn
By your command
This life unborn

Thursday, June 19, 2014

"Taxi"

1978-1983
Deserving of its place in the pantheon of television's sitcoms? Well...yes. And no. Bursting with potential its first season, it had a chemistry and balance not one sitcom in two hundred comes near. A put-upon everyman, a struggling actor, an abysmal boxer, a hopeful single parent, a dippy foreign mechanic, a drug-addled ex-hippie, and an acerbic dispatcher - perhaps the most across-the-board resonant cast of characters ever. But the show treads water for a few seasons, always just a few IQ points away from brilliant, or one cojone away from bold. Then creators james burrows, glen charles, and les charles leave, and the show becomes a shadow of its former almost-glory. The addition of the wonderful carol kane can't pull them out of the doldrums, and late season appearances by ted danson, tom hanks, penny marshall, and wallace shawn are wasted....but a "best of" marathon might delight.
GREATEST EPISODES (season)
-Like Father, Like Daughter (1)
A polish and effortlessness that belie a pilot episode. As elaine joins the cab company, alex reveals he has a daughter (talia balsam - HAPPY DAYS, MAD MEN) he hasn't seen in fifteen years, who is about to leave the states for school in Portugal. The gang convinces him they should all take a cab to say farewell in Miami. The meeting at the airport is poignant and unforced.
-Blind Date (1)
Alex arranges a blind date with the sweet-voiced woman (suzanne kent - PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, HISTORY OF THE WORLD: PART 1) on bobby's answering service. In person, she's obese and spitefully defensive. Can a sitcom make you both laugh and think deeply about an issue, perhaps subconsciously but for years to come? Yes.
-High School Reunion (1)
Louie dreads his approaching high school reunion, and wants revenge on his tormentors. Bobby convinces louie to let him go in his place, made up as a taller, more successful de palma. Louie agrees, but can't resist coming too. Jeff conaway is eye-poppingly brilliant.
-Memories of Cab 804 (1)
One of the most seamless pieces of ensemble work ever, on this show or any. The oldest company cab gets wrecked (by outgoing castmate randall carver, fittingly), and all the others tell their cab 804 stories. Guest starring tom selleck and mandy patinkin. Pinch me.
-Louie and the Nice Girl (2)
The vending machine woman (rhea perlman - CHEERS, KIRSTIE) falls for louie. He brags about all the sex they're having...except they're not. Wonderful chemistry. Brilliant and touching.
-Fantasy Borough, pt. 2 (2)
Sparked by an herve villachaize appearance in the middling pt. 1, the crew share their fantasies. You'll be smiling and chuckling non-stop, as louie dreams of being the only rich person in the world (and firing lassie), elaine & co. perform "The Lullaby of Broadway", and even alex's romantic fantasies go very wrong. Guest starring a sizzling priscilla barnes (THREE'S COMPANY, MALLRATS).
-Tony's Sister and Jim (3)
Jim romances tony's sister (julie kavner - RHODA, THE SIMPSONS). Tony is appalled. It sounds groaningly cliched - and it is. Yet the comedic talents of lloyd, kavner, and yes danza, make this one a non-stop laugher.
-On the Job, pt. 2 (3)
The Sunshine Cab Co. goes out of business. Again part 1 is middling, but 2 sparkles. Bobby works children's parties as a six-foot bunny, and alex is woeful as a night watchman. With a charming guest turn by al lewis (THE MUNSTERS, CAR 54, WHERE ARE YOU?).
-I Wanna Be Around (4)
Louie creates an armageddon shelter, and invites elaine, jeff, and tony to be his fellow survivors. Their two-day drill survives only eleven minutes. One of the few episodes to humanize louie, and give a substantive role to j. alan thomas, the actor always behind louie in the cage (and a fine fellow to be featured, as his name has the proper syllabalization to join "marilu henner" and "danny devito" in the lyricized version of the theme music).
-The Wedding of Latka and Simka (4)
Not as funny as other greatest entries, but charming and delightful for giving perhaps the most honest, progressive wedding (if you'll pardon the contradiction in terms) in sitcom history. Its quirks are explained by its being from latka's "backward" country...but don't let that fool you. The bride is given a REALISTIC admonition of what to expect, the couple wear each other's clothes for the ceremony, and defiance of authority is the test they must pass to be wed. Plus a lil' Dr. joyce brothers.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

condomnation!

People of planet Earth - throw off your chains! Take to the streets! No, wait...sheets! Take to the sheets, look your lover in the eye, reach down...
AND RIP OFF THAT CONDOM!
Stop being a piece of flotsam, floating along on the tide of history! Hump the way millions of years of evolution molded you to! Be the beautiful naked ape you were born to be! RECLAIM YOUR HUMANITY!!!!!!
Okay, let me pause.
Go back a few paragraphs. You should never, ever, EVER rip off a condom. No yanking either. I tried to yank a condom off once. It took my tingly bits a week to recover.
And since i've paused...
Have i actually assayed an anti-condom essay? This promises to be entertaining, if for no other reason than the human fascination with train wrecks. If you press me, i might have to claim that nefarious guamanians (is there any other kind?) hacked my computer to write this. Yes, i may have to really dig deep this time. Whipping it out of my ass may not suffice, i may even have to do, what's that word, it's on the tip of my tongue...
Research.
Is it too late to turn around?
I suppose not. Here we go.
It is an exaggeration to say that the history of my sex life is little more than the pursuit of a situation in which i don't have to wear a condom.
It's an exaggeration.
It is not, however, a gross exaggeration.
Future generations of humanity will be infinitely more sympathetic to that. Future generations will have a profoundly greater scientific understanding of human sexuality. Future generations will understand the psychology of sex immeasurably more...and they will look back on these times as the pinnacle of human barbarism. Future generations will live in a world of contraception and disease control so advanced, that the idea of putting a barrier between humans engaged in the single most intimate loving act, will strike them as so irreconcilably preposterous, that some might even refuse to believe we lived like this. They'll joke about condoms the way we joke about doctors bleeding a patient.
And we, the sad barbarians grunting through life with but a glimmer of such wonders and knowledge, can only shake our heads and sigh.
In all fairness, my experiences with condoms haven't been some ungainly misery. Sex with a condom can be pleasant. Even exciting and fun under the right conditions. Who am I to protest? I mean, how much easier is my life than King Minos of Crete? Apparently he ejaculated snakes and scorpions, and used a goat bladder covering to protect his lovers. How very thoughtful...
To everyone except the goat, i suppose. But if old Minos could be so considerate and conscientious, what's my maladjustment?
Yet...
If you polled people about the greatest sex they ever had, what percentage of the responses would describe an experience with a condom?
My first intercourse was condomless. My partner didn't bring up the subject of protection, and i was too awash in wide-eyed gratitude to think of it myself.
My second partner was my first condom (and second and third and maybe a dozen more). It was nice. Very enjoyable. For all i know she may have had a good condom reason aside from contraception. But my first anti-condom stirrings were born in those days...perhaps subconsciously, but i don't think it's entirely coincidental that i didn't object strenuously when we split.
When my third lover arrived, it was like i had magical powers - i had wished into being a virgin who couldn't conceive! Based on our personality compatibility, we probably should have lasted a week. But for months and months and months, i was happy as could be.
When the best lover of my life arrived, she said she was on the pill, and left the condom decision up to me. Are you kidding? And would i be so clearly looking back on her as the best lover of my life, had we gone the condom route?
In the years since...
More times than i can remember, i have passed on sex or a relationship if i knew condoms would be needed. In fact, in the more than two decades since my second lover, i've used a condom only one other time.
Wait...can that possibly be right?
Fortunately i've only been promiscuous by amish standards, so it's only mildly surprising that (as far as i know) i've made it this far in life without an incurable disease or baby.
When i think about the lover with whom i had the best sex of my life (a slightly different reality than "best lover"), we had marathon sex for months and months with NO protection whatsoever (except for my not ejaculating). Our non-condom use was an allowance she'd never made with any other man, and there was no rational reason why she chose to not do so with me. We just both decided on our own that condoms didn't pertain to us, and proceeded to have the aforementioned best sex of our lives.
Has my life's condom attitude basically been "What's the point in having sex if there's no chance it's going to be the best of your life?" Pretty much, i suppose. Not that i wouldn't have made allowances for certain women, but...
Anyway, i won't go in to my personal reasons for disliking condoms. Tain't nothing you haven't heard before. The question is, is there a scientific basis for this widespread (sorry) aversion?
You bet your latex long johns there is. To be sure, it's pretty thin at this early point in humanity's self-awareness...but it's also hard to ignore.
The only bona fide possible negative physical side effect of condom use i could find (with the exception of latex allergies) is a connection between talc and ovarian cancer. But the studies are inconclusive thus far, and the most damning point to a mere .4% increase in a woman's likelihood to develop such cancer.
The evidence of negative psychological ramifications is piling up, however. In one study, over a thousand women reported on their satisfaction levels with varying methods of birth control. The most satisfying? Sterilization, at 92%. After that, it was pill, IUD, then rhythm, in descending order. Limping into last place, with 30% satisfaction? Condoms.
In another study comparing three groups of women (condom users, non-condom users, and abstinent), latexed ladies were the most prone to clinical depression. Least prone? Barebackers, bless 'em. Think about that...given a choice between condoms and no sex, women would be subconsciously happier with no sex at all. Yikes.
And the men? Studies show that one third of men report occasional erectile problems related to condom use.
Further anti-condom evidence remains rather speculative, however. There's just so much we DON'T understand about the human body yet. But clearly, we have no comprehensive understanding of what makes for healthy human sexuality. It was only a few decades ago that legitimate scientists were still claiming that humans were naturally monogamous. And the psychiatric establishment still hasn't caught up with hard science, in that regard. Like i said, we're still in the dark ages. So we're stuck with scattered pieces of an incomplete puzzle. One such piece? We know that women who have non-condom sex regularly, become addicted to the semen they absorb into their bodies. It affects the same feel-good centers of their brain as recreational drugs, and when any such woman stops having sex, her body goes through an identical (if perhaps milder) version of chemical withdrawal.
My point is that if we still know so little about our own sexuality, who's to say what kind of damage, physical or psychological, we may be doing to ourselves by having unnatural sex?
On the other side? There are plenty of men reporting that condoms help them "stay in the game" longer. That can't be a bad thing, i suppose. Some condom advocates (well, condom sellers, really) claim that there is a bias against condoms, and they've even commissioned studies which support the notion that condom sex is actually just as pleasurable as bare. Hm. Could they be on to something? Could there be an anti-prophylactic cultural bias so pervasive that people have been brainwashed into thinking condoms are less pleasurable, when they're NOT? Because i didn't know how else to answer that (and because it sounded like fun), i took to the streets for some field research! No no, not sex with a thousand women, half with and half without condoms (though i like the way you think...). No, i asked people one survey question - "Did the best sex of your life involve a condom?".
Let me just say...if we've been brainwashed into an anti-condom bias, WOW have we been brainwashed. I don't know how many hours i would have had to put in to get just one "yes" answer, but there's a fair chance i'd be out there still. One gentleman was so animated in his response, modesty prevents me quoting him in full.
Okay, okay...non-rigorous studies aside, i'm dancing around the obvious point that all this has been leading up to. Am i actually standing up and counseling people to NOT wear a condom? I won't even invoke the available avalanche of STI statistics which support condom use...let's just agree that anyone intimate with the full range of these statistics would probably hump with a regular condom AND a female condom. Surely no responsible human would broadcast a non-condom message to humanity?
Oh, what the hell, i've come this far. Here's my thought - if we get EVERYONE to stop wearing condoms, STIs will run so rampant that everybody in the world will become some pus-dripping, chancrous, shaking, drooling half-human. It will be so repellant that the World Health Organization will reveal that they've actually had cures for all known STIs for decades...which had been suppressed, because american doctors stood to make far less profit healing humanity, than "treating" us ad infinitum! And if we can perhaps fuck the human population into doubling within this decade, we might also force the World Psychiatric Association into admitting that they've had a 100% effective method of meditational contraception since 1971!
There. There's my argument. Who's ready to fuck? By my computation, there have to be at least 100,000 more female virgins who can't conceive out there.
I'll leave this diatribe on a comical note (if there's anything we sexually-beleaguered humans need, it's something, anything, to laugh about). The next time you need a parting gift for a romance gone sour, or that perfect gag gift for any occasion, i recommend a little product called...the anti-rape condom. Worn by a woman inside her vagina, it has plastic barbs on the inner lining. Am i making this up?
You tell me.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Rebirth! Of a blog!

(a semi-sequel to http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2008/02/birth-of-blog.html)
I sit here on a beautiful 90-degree day, in my thoreau-sized home on this little Gulf of Mexico island. I'm not in a meadow, but i'm plenty naked. My door is open. In a nod to the detail-richness with which the previous incarnation of this site was based, the only sounds i hear are the peepings and rustlings of the birds and breeze, a neighbor's air conditioner some thirty feet away, and "Wrapped Around Your Finger" coming from cottages across the canal. The only garment within reach is boxer shorts, which i use to dab post-masturbation drippy-dick. Do post-sex cocks drip more when you don't ejaculate? I'm not positive, but i think so.
I say "nod" to such details, because i've evolved away from personal revelation in my writing. I'm still dedicated to being naked as ever, but there's more focus on enlightenment and entertainment. Let's assume that the person most fascinated by "me" in this world is me. If it's possible for ME to be occasionally bored by me (which it is), i'll assume that humanity isn't holding its breath waiting for details of my toenail infection.
Second nail from the right. In case you were wondering.
Anyway.
Here we are...in the naked meadow!
Why are we here?
To find our freedom, and lose our fear.
Why did we leave "unboughtsoul"? It's a happy parting - there's no love lost with the name and spirit into which i poured my life for half a decade. This change has been coming for a while, though. There's an inescapably negative quality to the prefix "un". Negativity, even righteous negativity, is burdensome. Pure positivity, more liberating.
The black background of the former site? Also heavy. This new one is the color of kermit, and my favorite hue, sky blue.
And as poetic as "unboughtsoul" was, it didn't trip off the tongue. It's a strange construction, and just a little cumbersome. I also never liked the religious association of "soul".
And that aforementioned ME focus...unboughtsoul was about drawing a line in the sand, and while i wish such line-drawing for everyone, the language inevitably drew attention to my own life. In the less-me spirit, i'm also removing some of my photos. Do i lack the courage of my convictions, in not removing ALL such, so as to eliminate any possibility of someone liking (or disliking) this site just because of my looks? Possibly...but there are some things you just don't do, and not sharing a picture of oneself with shatner is at the top of that list.
My first choice for the new site was "nakedfreedom". A clarion call! "Naked" was a given...metaphorically or literally, there's no more beautiful word in the English language. But that site name? Taken! "Nakedfree" was available...but i quickly realized there were some undesirable connotations there. I tossed around other options, including "freedomnaked", but the beauty of "naked meadow" won me over. The words are almost musical. I heard a soft bell inside my head, pondering them for the first time. In the confluence of language and culture at this moment in history, naked meadow resonates. It sounds like a place you've never been, but have been looking for all your life. Everything that was ever happy, everything that was ever free...
Plus, it's ever so faintly sexy. Not so much that the forces of puritanism will ban me "site" unseen, but...gently and quietly, naked meadow is a place where all dreams, carnal and otherwise, become real.
On top of all that, there was a possible "truth in advertising" conflict coming down the road. Unboughtsoul was a promise of purity, a vow to be untainted by money. No advertisers monitoring content, no editors pressuring me to "tone it down". I even tried to avoid knowledge of my "hits" numbers, so as to escape being encouraged or discouraged by anything other than my naked truth. However, i may be fast approaching a time when i'll be offered money for my words. If not the words themselves, then for public speaking. Without automatically compromising my integrity, i'm preparing myself to accept such rewards. Perhaps it's a coward's way out, but we live in a world of unchecked brutality. I've lived too close to the edge (and seen how unfeeling we are to those who fall off) to be thrilled having no buffer between myself and the destitution that spares so few. Even if that buffer is little more than a fool's illusion. If my vision and creativity can bring me some amount of creature comfort, while still maintaining integrity...
I'll probably do it.
I know how obvious a choice that seems to most. But think deeply, and your mind might take a different turn.
My eyes are open to the possible corruptions. And mere world-weariness wouldn't be quite enough to make me sell myself - there also has to be a potentially stunning upside. The dark tone of the previous paragraphs notwithstanding, i've now taken my first baby steps into the world of original material public speaking.
And?
Flashes of brilliance and absolute beauty. Out of the thousand-some unboughtsoul posts, are there a few dozen capable of making strangers laugh, get misty-eyed, or think about things they never thunk before?
The early answer seems to be yes, in ways both expected and not.
Can i avoid the pitfalls of "Like me, please like me??", or "give 'em what they like"? Can anyone, other than a pure hermit? Probably not. But i'll bust my ass trying.
So we step into a naked meadow! And "nakedfreedom" becomes the road untraveled. It would have been a more overtly revolutionary road, but it also would have carried more burden of challenge for the reader - "Am i being free enough? Oh lawsy, am i being NAKED enough??" Naked meadow is more peaceful and accepting. Which invokes the question, what's my focus - lighting a fire under the world's ass, or making people feel understood and comforted? That split is probably as fifty-fifty as it gets. Healer. Revolutionary. Perhaps there's some providence in "nakedfreedom" being unavailable. As much as i want every human to achieve my level of uninhibited self-awareness, i know we're at least a century or two away. So in the meantime, perhaps the greater part of my gift should be making people feel hopeful. Or failing that, maybe just offering permission to laugh in the face of a world that's not one tiny bit funny.
So come.
Walk through the woods.
Just when the forest seems most deep and dark...guess what you'll find.
Leave those clothes behind.
You don't need them. You never did.

Friday, June 6, 2014

personal mythology

Every suitor you ever spurned
Every love from whom you turned
Sacrifices on the altar of
your personal mythology

Every friend you ever sought
Any fad you ever caught
Accessories in service of
your personal mythology

Every moment you didn't live
Every effort you couldn't give
Lost in the dream of
your personal mythology

Every outrage you cried
Every desire you denied
Careful constructions in
your personal mythology

Every goal or group you forbore
Every garment you ever wore
Mere appendages to
your personal mythology

Every show you love or hate
Every idea you called great
Just calculations in
your personal mythology

Every "sacrifice" you made
Every "noble" move you played
Just angling to get laid plus
that personal mythology

Nothing measured for its own sake
Nothing grasped for the good it might make
Merit has no stake in
your personal mythology