writings

To love and be loved is to be destroyed by it. I’m realizing that now.

It’s an impossible ask, for two to be one. Because each one is always becoming. So two isn’t even real. Neither is one.

But it is. And there’s that love so deep and so profound that it shakes us to our cores. Because it awakens and moves the parts we shunned and forgot long ago.

We are already whole. And not at the same time. And someone else who’s just as messy comes along. And then suddenly whole doesn’t even matter. Because things are perfect. Truly perfect as it is.

And so this perfection shines a light on our deepest depths. Our deepest wounds and our deepest selves. But that’s a scary thing. Terrifying, in fact.

But you have to. And you will. Because that is her. Reality. Everything.

And so you bleed the weary tears and let the heart fall from the highs to the lows. Because the highs are so high there never was a low to begin with.

And so it’s this messy, luminous collision of two souls daring to see each other fully.

Yes, it’s devastating. Love strips us bare and forces us to meet the exiled parts of us in the mirror that is the other. But that terror is also grace. For those highs above high is love transcending fear.

They aren’t separate from the lows. They are the same. The fights and laughs is the wounds and awakening.

So you bleed. You tremble. You let the heart break open again and again. Not because love is a destruction, but because it is the only thing able to hold all that is ourselves.

And so we must break all that isn’t for all that is.

And in this love, there is the truth that love doesn’t make us whole. It makes us real.

The choice is yours. It always has been.

But if you say yes—Oh, if you say yes.

It is in the vast, indifferent universe that we come to know our nothingness. That we are truly nothing.

And yet, the greatest wonder is how that is everything.

To live and to die, and to be weak and frail is what makes us us. For how else could we hold something so precious in our hands?

And so in this meaninglessness is love. The world too marches on, and he grows weary of the burdens of his journeys. For the world feels the weight of itself because it is.

And in this weary and toil we meet the divine. The beauty and grace of reality and her touch.

We are but the same. We are so weak and so controlled by pain that we are love and free to be.

And in this everlasting dance, and all the ones that flicker in and out, is the everything of nothing.

So do not be afraid to fear and to laugh. Our capacity to feel is our greatest weakness and strength. After all, it is what makes us us.

And do not be afraid to live. For things fall apart and come together time and time again. What is and what could be are all a part of the story of stories. And you will always be you.

For better and for worse.

Love your fate. Expose the fictions you call reality. Be burned by the fires of destruction, and rise from the ashes. Rise. Reborn, as light.

Rebel against what you think things to be, because they’re not! Desperately seek the truth of all truths, and see where it takes you.

Descend into the treacherous depths and follow the wanderers. For you will become lost to find yourself again. And again. And again. And again!

Love your fate. Dressed in midnight, grinning at the stars. Howl from the mountaintops and whisper into the winds.

You are your path. Accept it. Accept it again. And again. And again.

Because you are you. So be what you are meant to be, and love who you are.

Revelation is power. Be the might of your will and surrender the smoke. For the light will shine upon us, again and again.

So burn this letter. Distill the ink to lightning. And command your soul with ritual under the open sky.

Love your fate. Again and again and again.

You are eternal recurrence. A forever flame. A spell. A rite of way. So go through the fire and storm.

Because this is not invention. This is return.

To all that was and ever will be.

Now go. Again and again.

We are but simple beings. Caught in our dreams, seeking what’s deep. And searching for truth.

So we create. Me and more me’s. What is to be?

And so we yearn. Who pulls our wounded strings? To free in a world trapped by me.

We fight and hurt and wonder why I did that. Sometimes it was worth it. It never really was.

We chase what’s good and feels whole. Writing magical tales of a simple tree.

And so we quest and pray for an end. Something to make it all go away. And maybe okay. But that’s for another day.

And so we live and ride our wildest fears. I wonder what’s near.

For it’s the truth I bear. We are but simple beings.

To live is to paint the canvas of your being; to write the lyric of your soul; to sing the tears of the heart

You are the space between what was and what’s to be - a tempest of opportunity, filled with infinite wonder and peril.

Be the artist of your mind! Scribble all over and draw on the textures of sound and the shapes of emotion and the waves of sentience, and see what masterpiece emerges.

That masterpiece that is you. A manifesto of pure creation and destruction, over and over and over again. Until your last dying breath, as you wander off into the wild…

Remember as you explore, you are both lost and found. Free and bound. Argue with the edges of your world and see how reality negotiates.

Experience is but a beast, you are the monster and the tamed. The warden of your dreams, the conductor of your visions. Of what is. Of what will. And of what was told.

Do not fear the power of your being.

Do not temper the fire of your soul:

A mystery that knows no end.

You are a story of revelation;

A true declaration of becoming.

Suffering is the fear of uncertainty, and everything we do to keep that at bay.

It makes no sense, because the unknown is certain. Everything else isn’t. And so we hold on so tight to what we know and what we think is right and what we think is me.

But I don’t know how to not be scared. I don’t know how to not be angry at the world about my pain. And I see everyone else too, doing the same thing.

Many times I’ve asked, why God? Why this? What is this? How am I supposed to be okay with all of this?

There is no answer that’s good enough. There is no answer that makes the suffering worth it.

And yet, we dance. And sing. And cry and love.

The pursuit of understanding is what we do. And it’s gotten us quite far. But what now? When the questions never end?

I suppose all we can do is find embrace in the world and each other; for the pursuit of happiness is not to understand, but to be.

And that pursuit is whatever it takes to get there. And what a journey that can be.

Love and connection is what brings to life the groundless ground. Because if nothing matters and everything’s perfect why exist in our certain ways?

Connection is that tethering. That line drawn in the canvas of reality. Me and you. That we’re in this together. That we see things the same although we’re different and that the times we share will be magical, for all that it is.

That tethering is what makes things real. It’s what makes things dance. For that now there is a ground, there’s somewhere to play.

And so all the uncertain things we questioned about ourselves show as these characters of this opera, and all the ups and downs become these beautiful sagas of the night.

And in doing so, we come to realize that all the mysteries we had about ourselves were that same nothing and everything.

Because why did we question our worth? And our humanity? And that I was undeserving of love and never to be seen, for all that I am?

And in wrestling with these nothings, we come to find that these struggles were the everything of our worlds. The stories we tell and the colors we use.

So do not be alone. For your being is always becoming in this world.

And you are never alone. For the times you share without your face is still speaking with reality.

So in this fire between what is and what will is the myth of aliveness. For to dance is to bring to life what is but a simple tune.

And what a myth it is. It is truly magic. Because when the melody arises, the world reveals her prizes.

That we can witness our creations in this wild field of being. Love.

Love indeed.

What a bittersweet and beautiful feeling it is to relive the past in the now. To see the world again through those young eyes is quite something.

Many times I’ll go back to a certain day or moment or place and see it directly and wander that fleeting world. I’ll probe each memory to see again just how blue the water was that one day or how joy felt when I was a child.

It’s quite something because there’s just so much, all of it. I’ll start seeing the red and blue and green of my drawer and the tv that was on top. And then I’ll start seeing it through younger me’s eyes; and you start to sense the confusion and wonder and fear and pain all over again.

It’s quite something because as you feel, you don’t know what to feel. It’s like your being is in two worlds at once. And unfortunately, you can’t choose which one is now.

As the lines between the imaginal and liminal blur, you can’t help but feel that lostness. That in which you know who you are by way of your life and the worlds you’ve inhabited, but are unsure of which ones you've created. Many times you ask, why me? Or is it because of me?

The truth is there is no truth. And there is the truth. And there is your truth. And there is everyone else’s and the world’s.

I wonder which eyes will see the world again and tomorrow. The day after that as yesterday’s past.

I like living a story. Now that suffering has been mostly tamed, I find myself wanting it to be an element of my being. Who knew it would turn out this way? Lol

I like drugs and the euphoria and pain it brings. I like the journey it takes me on, as messed up as it is. I like being weird and fucked in the head. Why? Because that’s who I am.

I’ve spent a lifetime hating myself and now that I don’t but also don’t really give a fuck, life has been a wonderful exploration and series of self-experiments to see how bad bad can get and how good good is.

Of course, it took everything in me to get here. And more. I’ve come so close to a willing death - to the true absence of hope.

That singular moment when I fully gave up was the necessary surrender to ignite the alchemy. I remember it so clearly now. When surrender became salvation.

So what is there to fear really when you’ve been kidnapped into the lower realms? When you’ve had no choice but to figure out what the actual fuck was going on in your head to find a way through?

Well it turns out a lot of things; but what I fear no more is my lack of faith. Beyond my soul, that I am.

I decided to stop being bad for a few days and yeah my body is much better and my mind is much clearer and my emotions and thoughts are much more manipulatable and I’m just more able - but where’s the fun in that?

There’s a time and place for everything, and for me, as soon as my dark night is over it’s so over for you bitches

But maybe I don’t want the darkness to end, because it is my friend; because I’m no longer its victim, but a willing participant.

I suppose, at the end of the day, maybe I was just born the wild.

Love is when you create a world within the world together. Shared experiences, language, thoughts, and perceptions that are uniquely yours and private to the world. Connection isn’t just what tethers us; it is the ground.

They say love is most fundamental and that it has its own plans. From which there are no answers and clues, it enacts the way. There is no path without the ground, after all.

Maybe they say to hold on to those lasting fleeting moments because that is really all you have. But somehow, once it’s graced you, it’s never gone - just as you are now never lost.

From what I can see and tell in my limited experience, the world does really seem to be held in its fragility by love and those who are unafraid of its consequences. Or, in other words, all of us and our terrifying-beautiful stories.

It’s what turns the extraordinary ordinary back into moments of something sacred. And loved.

So what is love? It’s when the whole universe seems to exist in that shared glance. Truly ineffable.

“From what I can see and tell in my limited experience, the world does really seem to be held in its fragility by love and those who are unafraid of its consequences. Or, in other words, all of us and our terrifying-beautiful stories.”

The only thing you really need to know about all this is that you have suffered and you’re continuing to propagate it, whether it be afflicting pain on yourself or others or the world. The sad thing is we’re both aware and unaware of all of this; resilience would say we’ve continued in spite of all this.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to accept this. Maybe it’s because deep down I will never be okay with suffering. And maybe it’s like that for other people too.

Love and suffering, suffering and love. Maybe they’re two and the same. I don’t know. And maybe it’s okay for some things to remain a mystery.

Maybe we suffer because we are love but don’t feel it. Don’t know it in the ways we’re meant to, but rather in its messy forms and what we want it to be. Maybe the biggest lesson of all is that regardless of what you think and feel and see and regardless of what you’ve been through, you will always be love and loved.

My heart aches at past me and everyone else who was disillusioned by the absence of love. I am so sorry. I know this is just me whispering into the ether, but I hope you know that I love you and so does the world and so do you, deep down.

Earlier today, I decided to go by the ocean. To just sit on a bench and listen to the waves.

It was a beautiful morning; the sun was powerful, and the wind had a warm embrace to it this time. Finally, a change! Spring is near.

As I sat and watched the fishermen cast their lines, I remembered the last and first time I did that.

It was a few years ago, by a different sea. There were mosquitoes everywhere, and somehow, we managed to catch this one ugly looking brown thing. Fortunately, his appearance was what led him to see another day.

I remembered the picture I took of my friend holding him up, which reminded me how whenever I’d see this particular photo, the next one would always be of my other friend’s dog, Bailey.

Bailey was a big girl, a beautiful Rottweiler. I remembered how every time I opened the front door, she’d be there to greet me. She’d always put her paws up on me, which hurt a lot. Tongue was always out, and even now I can hear what her excitement sounded like. She was the guardian of the basement, where all our treasures lie. Days and days of ping pong, getting mad over NHL games and how the game was rigged, and where I’d always sit on the couch with my juul next to me snuck between the cushions.

I remembered how we’d leave at night to go to an abandoned shed by town, where we’d come stocked with apples and weed. Oh man, you should’ve seen how surgical I was with those apple bowls. Now that was art. The secret was in using a chopstick—not a straw or pen because that always messed up the airflow.

We would go inside the shed and sit on this dead log, and get high and laugh and chat about our days. Sometimes, we’d bring some joints if we were really indulging. Those were always a treat. And I have to brag here, because to this day no one has rolled one better than me.

I remembered the first time I had smoked a joint; it was actually a week after we had come back from Cuba. I used to play baritone sax, and our high school band got to play around the country for the locals. That was cool.

My favorite song we played was New York, New York by Frank Sinatra, and they loved it too. There was that one time in Havana where we played it a few times back to back. Encores galore!

Those days in Havana were something else. There was this one afternoon where we went to the big marketplace in town. We had twenty minutes to walk around and shop, and of course with us being us, we snuck out onto the streets and started asking for cigars. A bit stereotypical I know, but could you blame us? And if you’ve had the fortune of smoking a Cuban, you would’ve done the same thing too, I bet.

As we were asking around, a man came up to us. He knew what was up. And so we followed him down a few backroads to this little room. This room was a treasure chest. In one corner were boxes and boxes of Cohibas and Montecristos and Romeo y Julietas. In another was this man sitting at his table, watching soccer from a small TV caged behind some bars.

We bought as many as we could, and impatiently waited for the night. The hotel we stayed at in Havana had a balcony on each room, and our chaperones were on another floor. So we all convened as the moon rose to revel in our findings.

That first one I smoked was a Montecristo #4. Now this was the first time me and nicotine met, and what a way to enshrine our entangling for the years to come. That buzz, I shit you not, lasted for hours. We had the time of our lives.

I remembered how I looked at the water then. It was so blue, and it went on for miles and miles. Just blue.

And now, here I am again, me and blue. And waves and wind and seagulls.

I wonder if the ocean knows of its treasures and remembers them too. That we’ve both been graced by the laughter of the waves and each other.

And as the ocean whispers back, it is the silent keeper of story. Because as I remember, it seems the world does too.