I cant say what it is: maybe its that I feel as though I am a tiny little heathen vying to be recognized for owning a status saved for people who don’t really care for it. I have this recurring vision that I’m a child sitting on my knees before an edge of a great abyss. I hear this voice and always she says ‘there you are child’; she smiles. I feel elated. Wow its powerful. She only smiles, and she doesn’t have a face or a form, but I seem to crawl into her arms anyways, an area as wide as space is deep and I feel so much relief, like what I experience when my mind forgives the germs and pardons my weakened feet from walking, sliding into a period open only for rest. Its pure forgiveness. Its peace. Its the reason I keep coming back.

But now I wonder why I even have the respect to write: my skin is heavy with filth and frowns, my mind is a steady torch growing tall in the articulated breeze that comes from the wicked west from where I hear my thoughts cheer ‘get real’ at a rally of long chins and gray faces. I react when I know I shouldn’t, I give in and give up and sulk on the bathroom floor; a cup of tea reminds me to work with something other than the mystery of my own mind. The vacancy sign is definitely on, waiting for ease to rent to room. Where is stillness now? I soak my head in chemicals to hide the markers of an aging crown and I frolic through the words that dump from me like an elephant takes a shit. I’m tempted to throw it all away, to burn the forest down before the wildfire devours his prize, to win the flow and to fuck it all, like an elephant takes a shit. God it must feel good to evacuate so much useless matter, to give it to the ground: I’ll give myself to the process, like an elephant takes a shit.

There were four maidens in a pond with a master gent, they flirted gently with the tide so still, smoothing the surface with gracious movements of exposed flesh; he revealed nothing but his strength as he soaked. His erection whispered his age and the lines tracing his facial frown demanded that the girls protect the bond of weakness in the beauty of silence, the curve of his bushy brow held each of them as his own and the light of the moon was kind enough to validate this mystical commune while it sailed upon the water.

As by the discipline of nature they trailed him from the wooden round’s edge and into the deep, where trees watched and winked falling leaves from weeping heights. One perched upon the spine of a stone, another balanced beside the fur of a tailored stump, another traced constellations with her fingertips above the medium of heat rising, and the last of the maidens fed the gent her softness with a smile, her heart with a kiss, her life with the look of fear in her eyes.

]]> http://www.rashamwrites.com/journey/essex/feed 0 http://www.rashamwrites.com/journey/jason-writes http://www.rashamwrites.com/journey/jason-writes#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:27:52 +0000 Rasham http://www.rashamwrites.com/?p=514 I received this story as an email from a dear friend Jason, who, in the most beautiful way, came to understand that life’s value is in living, and that living requires only that we surrender to it.

I was at a cafe sipping my umpteenth cup of coffee, absorbed in the literature that has come to consume the entirety of my waking life and pondering a breath of sweet Indian smoke when I opened this letter. At first, my ego was satisfied with skimming the contents quickly and returning to the comfort of my toxic mind-space, but as I settled into his words I found a sort of calm, and in reading the message, in removing my attention from myself and onto the words I was inevitably enlightened; here, before me, is the truth that people have the power to heal themselves, that no matter where you come from and what your troubles are, the very thing you desire is entirely within your means to achieve; that, like Jason, in letting go and removing yourself from the insanities all around, you discover a sort of peace of mind that comes only when you no longer seek to grasp it.

His story, indeed, symbolizes the greatest ‘becoming’ of us all; it represents the most precious lOve story ever, that is, the lOve we fOrm with Ourselves as we re-fOrm Our lOve with essence, nature:

Shed old skin however best suits your desires; but do so soon and you will become wise beyond any level the best authority could grant. By removing yourself, relieving yourself of superficial duties and unnecessary attachments you allow yourself access to the highest source of infinite power, strength, hope, and love; be humbly and daringly open, accept that life is your challenge not to win but to surrender, and flow into it with the same respect you would offer the sea if you found yourself on a surf board, on a wave, powerless and in awe of the expanse of unity that could bring even the strongest warrior to his knees.

Jason Writes:

I know you would love this amazing California beach trip. I wish you could see this Shammy. I didn’t know who to write to I just had the urge to write, so I know you would appreciate this. Excuse my poor writing I am new to this. The peacefulness that this trip has granted me greatly triumphs every possession that I have and its “ability” to assist in my happiness. This is what being free truly feels.

Right now I am sitting lying in my car somewhere south of highway 1, which by the way is just as beautiful heading south as it is heading north. I got to Santa Cruz today early morning and surfed Pleasure point for high tide. You wouldn’t believe the seaweed there. I kept getting completely tangled in it and would be absolutely destroyed by the waves when I was there. This definitely wasn’t a rookie surfs spot. The hardest thing about surfing is getting actually out to where you wait patently for waves. When there are good swells it is near impossible. It takes every bit of strength you have to battle nature at its finest. So many times you just feel overwhelmed by the ocean. As soon as you overcome the wave another one instantly attacks you. The constant pounding makes it seem like it would be so much easier to just head back in.  I personally feel that it’s a sign of respect for the ocean, almost a test. You must past the pounding waves to be allowed to ride them.  The ocean is so unforgiving to those to don’t respect it.

After a few hours in the water the low tide set in. I took a break for lunch and started driving south through Capitola. I found the most amazing sandwich place ever. Had lunch there and ended up meeting some locals who guided me to Steamers Lane. Steamers lane is a cool surf spot south of Capitola that works well at low tide, so I went there and surfed for an hour or two. The ocean bottom was hard rock. Next to coral reefs this is the most unforgiving. The most amazing part of this spot is the inaccessibility of it. The water comes up all the way to the cliff; there is little to no beach left. Definitely somewhere you don’t want to get caught. There is a large lookout over the cliff filled with people watching in awe of the surfers completely shredding the wave or completely wiping out. There were also a few surfers that never surfed this spot. I started talking to them and we completely analyzed and planned our surf (all good surfers do this).  Time really doesn’t seem to matter right now. The only way I have been able to tell is by the sun. I went to take a post surf nap in the car (much earned) and ended up passing out for about 4 hours. I woke up and it was nighttime.

Heading back to the beach it was marked with the bright lights of the Saturday night bonfires. Here I met a bunch of people from Monterrey. We exchanged stories and danced the night away, cold sand beneath my feet. Ironically it was total surf hippie music. I wish you could see the stars here. It looks like they are neatly scattered across the sky. So bright and vibrant, they will keep me company tonight. I can hear the beautiful peaceful sound of the waves crashing down in harmony as I sit here in my car and write you. That’s it for tonight. Time to catch some shuteye.

I slept like crap last night. The only place I found that I could crash was right off the freeway. It got so cold at points too. It is strange to me that on a normal day that would completely bum me out. However I had some fruit for breakfast and was instantly put in a wonderful mood. I started driving to somewhere I could surf the sunrise. I put one of a few CD’s that my friend gave me for this trip and re-discovered Missy Higgins. (I went to the concert with Shereen.  Her voice could bring peace to war. Missy’s, not Shereen’s; haha) . She is amazing.

I ended up at Carmel Beach to surf the morning. The water is so clear and blue here its amazing, perfectly contrasted with pure white sand. It looks like it could be in a movie. The water here is ice cold though and the water was more of a rolling wave (good for long boards not short), so I was not able to surf long. Afterwards I started heading down south again and stopped by a Whole Foods to grab some grub. I ended up only buying fruit (apples, mangos, bananas, and a pineapple) and tons of water. I stopped somewhere on the coast to take a nap and relax for a while. It’s still crazy to me that I have nowhere to be and I can just go as I feel. That feeling is more amazing than anything.

Furthering in driving I came across Sand Dollar beach near Big Sur.  You couldn’t believe the price of everything down here. Gas and food is crazy. I think I will have enough gas to get me to my next destination tomorrow though. I think this is going to be my camp spot tonight and I will be heading down to Santa Barbra tomorrow. I started talking to these people and they even invited me to have dinner with them at their house. We skim boarded for a while and it was amazing.  I didn’t tell you that I love skim boarding too huh. However, I decided to get a head start on tomorrow. The further south I get the more breathtaking the beaches are and the more I wish that you were here with me. You would truly appreciate this more that ever. Highway 1 goes all the way down the California coast.

I started thinking about my life as sit here overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I think I am going to have a few goals before I decide to make drastic changes.

1.Eliminate liabilities. I have discovered that possessions mean nothing in comparison to experience. On my trip I instantly want to take every hour of TV watching and video game playing back. I have no memories of doing these things. Every memory of you and I sticks out in my head so vibrant and motivates me in life.

2.Improve my health. After a few days of surfing my arms and shoulders are torn. It is seriously wearing on me. My goal is to get mavericks water-ready by next year, not during competition mode but enough where I could be out there with the best. I have been out in the water where there were huge 15+ foot waves and it is so scary. Imagine looking up and there’s 15 feet of water above your head. Even when you duck, dive or turtle roll through the wave it feels like your are being hit by the force a bomb would create.  You dive in and it’s like a sonic boom.

3.Education. I have discovered that I think I am in need of a major change. I’m thinking communications (not mass communications, there is no money in that). I want to do something I love and communication is it. Everyone loves me; they cant help it.

I can’t believe I am writing you an essay.

I’m getting more towards So Cal and the water is getting much more warm and crowded.  Everyone seems so superficial here. They definitely don’t appreciate the little things. I did catch the most epic wave today though. I rode it all the way to its end. Flying past surfers and other swimmers, it was one of the greatest feelings that I have ever had. The feeling that you are completely in harmony with the wave is breath taking. You understand each other and you are working perfectly together to create something beautiful. My heart was beating so fast after. All I wanted to do was run and yell. You should have seen the smile on my face. I don’t think it’s ever been that big.

So my album for the day is ‘The Who’. It complements the drive so nicely. Tomorrow I will be driving back to the bay and for the first time in the trip there is somewhere…

I’m down as Pismo beach and it’s just littered with people. There is nothing inviting about this place. It is kind of neat that the surf breaks due to a large pier. However it doesn’t allow for a long ride. The last thing you want to want to be is stuck between a large wood beam and a crashing wave. I don’t think I caught one wave today. There was just way too many people. So I headed in to do some homework. It is amazing that I can sit in my car, perfectly angled so I cannot see the crowded beach; just ocean, sun and sky. I wish I could do homework here every day. I can just focus. Especially no internet and phone to give me any distractions. The only regret is that there is a small part of me that wants some pillow talk at night. I can only hint upon what I see and how I feel. I think I could do a better job verbally describing it to you. Talking about this experience probably wouldn’t give it any justice either. I think showing you may be the only way.

People down here do not appreciate what I am doing, unlike the people more north who thought it was amazing. A lot of people ask me where I’m from and what I am doing.

As soon as I was ready to give up on So Cal I met this old surfer. This man was the most peaceful person I have ever met in my life. He kind of reminded me of that guy from Surfer, Dude. I went and had lunch with him and he taught me so much. Its amazing how wise he is. Here are a few quotes from the old man.

“Surfing is much like love, it always feels good, no matter how many times you’ve done it.”

“Very few people life live anymore. Life lives them.”

“Listen brother, if there is one thing I am going to teach you today is that I have never stressed one day in my life. I have lived it more

 than any other person could say. I have nothing and only that reason alone gives me everything. Live peaceful young brother.”

CRAZY right. I asked him if he had a phone number or email to exchange and he said that he would always be somewhere by the beach if I wanted to ride with him. He has no phone or email. Amazing…

Well I am heading home tomorrow so I won’t bore you anymore with this.

Live Life Shammy, Be Peaceful.

Love,

Jason

Blow and Morning Brilliance

‘Oh my gato’ how the energies are painted in tiny specks across a spiraling reality: how minuscule the projection appears through my weary lenses looking out from within a  nightlife capsule; the sniffles and sneezes, the dollar-menu gazes and gourmet hollowness of this place is spawned from an oath to commit an act of epic togetherness.

It is this element of absurdity that links the faded frequencies of gone people; we’ve done this before, we do it again, distance is a trophy best honored by recurring sips of powdered air.

There are warts on the morning horizon, craters on the face of dawn pop and leak fluids that unveil a recent history of conscious massacre, one fueled by an overabundance of mind-altering goodies.

‘Quick’, I think. ‘Lets clean it up before the aliens arrive. I don’t want the obvious remnants of an intentional mutilation ceremony to taint the preliminary impressions of my possible saviors’.

Oh well. I shrug my thoughts and lean into myself: an olive tree is pointing a finger at me and I grin: ‘okay, okay, I’ll play my part’, says I in a whine. I collect my frigid form and manifest a smile when all I most easily want is to play with the party people. Regaining a sense of stillness I remember the impermanence of it all and sentence myself to detention, surrendering the responsibility of playing straight.

While life seems to be descending to a fine point for the partakers of illusory escape, I am with absolute presence and awareness, in a dress fit for a clown, laughing at the process and counting the seconds until I can gracefully walk away; I am free to feel the frequencies of a morning sun without the burden of having to pop her pimples.

I gesture to leave my souring nest but pity is a poison best sipped near the entrance of a new day and I ponder my own willingness to stray the comfort of isolation. No. Not today. I can’t go on like this. Ready. Set. Go.

I escape; I scurry into daylight, my shadow trails behind and I find a seat before the sun, beside a tree nestled eloquently in a bed of mulch and stone. I drop down down down to bloody knee: I can’t go on like this. Stop. Breathe. Listen. Screeching tires, busy doors and voices of people pushing sloppy conversations through forked tongues: over it all the piccolos cry, there it is: there it is: one tree in a field of asphalt has the power to pull angels from the sky. Its 10 am, I slowly release the heartbeat that rocked me from the safety of sleep; I undress my armor of emotional impermeability and learn that I am none of the things I call myself. Ready. Set. Go.

Dear Journey,

Confession:

I think maybe I tried too hard to be a hero around this. I dressed in an armor of emotional impermeability one night in the distant past and I neglected to change suits. Today I sat in the sun; I felt small. I miss feeling small. It felt nice. I surrendered the energies to which I have been so attached, the ones inspired by you, ignited by this spontaneous connection-

I write this as the thought of you reading these words makes me feel vulnerable- it is from this source of uncertainty that I trust you, dear Goddess, to provide nourishment for my spirit; music has been a fine dose of encouragement, colors return to grace the buds in beauty’s arms with pink-pointed kisses.

Or maybe its that I hold weakness in the back of my throat and it is now creeping upwards, shorting neural connections and breeding odd ones instead- I don’t know anything, but that this is not an end is something of which I am sure, though it has presented itself as one for some time now. And so I grant it the respect it deserves and I bury it while reading these words; otherwise I might turn my back to catch something shiny and new while this precious gem reluctantly floats out to sea…

Love,

Rasham Writes

I went for a walk in the forest today.

 I’ve walked many forest floors but never in this skin, never as I am today. I could say that something is different but I know the only difference is me. I understand clearly that I have nothing to give. Nothing that I could ever possibly do would benefit the forest more than my absence. This is an invitation, of course, to dance.

I danced. I imagined each tree as unique and engaged them as such. I touched the skin of these woody giants and felt forgiveness. I fantasized relationships and moved as I felt the tree would have led a human in a waltz. I laughed. I cried.

I was on my knees in the forest today. I played my part in the forest today. I was human where I stood and content as I slipped into the place where I belonged.

I have returned from a walk in the forest. Impermanence is revealed like a lightning bolt thrown from the hand of God and I’m gone in a moment. I burn myself as I thought I was and I become someone new. I surrender to the order of things, like rapid water reclines into stillness in becoming the sea. It is the center of time, a place where hungry scissors can have their way and nobody gets burned by the blades of confinement because limits have no value in the land of the free. Separate from my name, gather new ones and redefine the meaning of myself. I swat the switch to change my mind; this is the only control I can call my own.

“Do epic episodes of eccentric energies ever end? Or do they forever exist in everlasting imprints of extended tentacles?” I asked with diminished pride.

“Hold on to yourself while the ether flows around; wait: accept it, you’ll waste yourself fighting, just sink in and soak it up; flower from bud before wilting; you will have your moment and it is this life; stay open and exposed and love will find you in unexpected ways”, says the man called Mudpie.

 These lyrics that played while our tentacles interlaced serve now to ease the pleasure of hating you most wonderfully; ‘its just the way, that it is, nothing more, nothing less…’.

And so I wander back into my own skin, reclining into my easy chair, channeling melodies in city spaces and throwing off the challenge with a smile and a shrug.

Chico

Too many words

I only need a few;

modesty is a dress

I wear

on the night of

this bruised moon

Silence I wear

like the weight in my eyes

Drag the color brown;

drag it into this bruised night

My mind says to end

but with words I can pretend

that forever is fancy

and fortune is free

and love is the last mile

crossing

the distant breeze

So with fewer words

and fewer words still,

say back to me

once more, my rosy thrill

You brought me here

I am strong for it I fear;

but ride further with you still?

(The outline of this bruised moon

is where old blood rests upon window sills)

Too many words

I only need a few

I’ll say only ‘yes’

Simply and

before old blood

demands regress

So with fewer words

and fewer words until

I relax into the morning;

it asks to be still

4th Step

I know why you wear your glasses to bed: you’re afraid you wont see what’s coming when you’re asleep, that if you open your eyes and have a moment to react you may react wrongly because you cant see…I know this…I watch you sleeping, I see those eyes moving in the space on your face while you wait at the edge of dreams for a reason to engage your reflexes and then boom! Too late; the nightmare is real and blood is already pouring; if only you had been wearing your glasses…

And what diet have you consumed that has left you so bloated with fear? Who has your heart in a bind and who before has pricked it a million times with nasty needles of demented perfection? You seek approval in all forms, wanting to be wanted by all people in all ways. And when you fail to find that source of acceptance you suffer a gentle stab, you  feel it sink in and slide around, you feel it grow around your heart and change you, you feel it arrest your thoughts and turn them so that they are unfamiliar and throbbing like your pulse that sets the tone for your prize of resentment.

You will cry now, wont you? Remembering the pleasant taste of freedom, a memory vague and teasing, like the flavor of strawberry licked from the fingers of your vacant sweetheart. Why do you source the misery from which you run? Is there a place to phrase the pickled prayers of a self-anointed princess? You are nothing, you think. You have nothing and you come from people who have less still. So go, then, leave this world like you’ve wanted before; the skin of your wrists is already written with scar tissue gossip of a lonely end.

And to whom are you now attached, I wonder? From whom do you leech the vibrant energy of approval? Does he say ‘I love you?’ And what do you reply? You might sit still and soften those eyes behind the forged glass that shields your sinister intentions; so afraid to be alone you keep him with your smile all the while you silently repeat the mantra of mortal insecurity in your mind: ‘please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me….’ You’re so afraid to be alone! The form of the man is no matter so long as he craves you, cradling your virginity or catering to your finite innocence with the force of his fist; to you it is no matter. The kind one thinks of himself the answer to your history of abuse, the ill-tempered one sees you as weak and sees him a savior who violently demands recognition of his heroic cock.

Is it security you seek? Daily sessions of unconditional affirmation? Like congealed animal fat the weight of your uncertainties hangs in pockets of condensed self-pity, you roam the earth a victim of the hurt you have been prescribed by the crooked sources of power in your sick society: you believe them though all they have done is reduced you to another consumer casualty waiting to wear an American flag around the grave;  in death you’ll be as valued as the cost of your tomb. Until then, I hate the way your lips coil around the words of your favorite pop-star icon.

I know you fight it, you’re wrapped in your own skin shaking like a dying dog, a look of anger drips wet with worry and is smeared across the canvas of your nighttime portrayal. It is pain to descend into darkness, to release the demons you have all day concealed with a half-ass smile and neon bright words that defend your make-believe bliss. For you life is a thin dress of sugar which coats a swollen seed of malcontent.

What would you need to release the beast? How long until you give birth to your morbid offspring; a word or a glance or a thought or a sentence that spews like vomit from your soured insides? You deliver unto the world that with which it has you impregnated; coils of hurt, anger, hatred, and grief. Your life is a permanent gestation of a broken fetus with a broken heart; your child wears the crown of thorns long before it’s born, she is doomed to carry the burden of a thousand stubborn mistakes; thank you, mother murderer.

So what now? You’ll sleep eventually, wearing the pink frames or cuddling them close to the scabs on the knuckles of your graying hands, awaking to feed your aging addictions, one by one they surface and you place them in line, one after another, each one fulfilled only brings you closer to the next; you cherish your alcoholic itinerary and so long as you’re awake you function like a machine driven by a programmed response that has you constantly inputting random data and outputting arbitrary waste, the sad cycle of someone convinced they are deprived and only partially a person.

So you learn of things which only jumble spiritual reception and from it you produce no good action except the action to deny that divinity exists outside of dreams. You are alone, you prefer to be alone, so no one can ever get close enough to learn why it is that you wear your glasses to bed… but I know, I watch you as you sleep…

Its early now or late still, and I’m doubtful and hopeless and resisting of life;, I awake it seems with the memory of having been something else and cry when I realize I am trapped in an earth-made suit of human flesh, uneasy knowing that it is 2 am and I am this thing for many hours to come. There is no idea of future, no promise of anything but uncertainty when you wander outside of your subconscious, loitering long enough to fry your dreamland security and to remorsefully accept that you are who you are and you are in this body and tragedy turns despite the spastic fits of your angry rain dance, that memory’s disaster is that it exists and that it feeds from the same form that ensures a sloppy survival in the least. And so I await 5am, my favorite time of day.

5 am; my favorite time of day; houses appear vacant, roads that are host to surface pushing and pulling suddenly appear at peace, they are kept company by the spiny winter tress watching on either sides of the sideways wrapped in sidewalks that are barren like the shops and showrooms that are sometimes lit, sometimes not.

5am is my favorite time of day; I stumble and stand in the garden dividing two directions; it wouldn’t be so bad if I were alone in this world. I scurry by the side of a window where a blue glow is radiating from the backsides of lanky walls and see a girl wearing a halo of aquamarine; she is standing above the stoop within a shell of a diner. They say that spiritual energy is strongest in the early morning; she is dancing with her broom and stops to watch me watching. We smile, proof of life in an otherwise dead world.

5am is my favorite time of day. I move forward, further into time though my place in space makes no difference. I take a seat on a bus after a nod to the driver, squatting distantly from the suit breathing an alcoholic’s flame but I only smile: 5 am is my favorite time of day. Some long bearded man with a wizard’s gleam has his roots in the front yard of a tired church. His eyes are magnetic spheres of translucent ice; with the force of my right hand I pull the overheard tassel and command the driver to stop. At 5am I conquer the barren road and surrender to his gravitational pull, becoming a tiny element flying in the final orbit of his astonishing presence.

He was stroking the hair on his face and smiled as I crept: ‘ahhh, 5am is my favorite time of day’, he grumbled, ‘when all the watchers of the world watch the once waking slip away, when the owls stand their pinnacle stand, and the spiritual energy is thrust upon the crust of our temporal world, where time is ‘atickin though in a lick of space the coordinates of change align, and oh how the mad ones gather in isolated chambers chanting to the saints; these sinners want to be saved but salvation from what? 5 am; like a mirror it is a global reflection; no lies no disguise just the heart wearing warriors roaming the frontline of an ambiguous parade. And you, my deary, my darling: what brings you out at 5am is not the stubborn desires of the soles of your feet to collect in miles the lengths of city streets…no, you were loved and now love has gone and so you’ve come to me to seek the potion that would have you once again complete…’

‘5am is my favorite time of day’ I say, ‘I kissed the heart of this silver warrior goodbye and I ventured outdoors to play. I left to find a place to stand in a churchyard by the stones stained with the names of those who once engaged the game but failed and fell into a grave that feeds the earth; she once was my home though now it is simply
5am in the front-lines of this ambiguous parade and I am, it seems, not so alone. But even besides my own curious stride and never mind my wounded pride I feel I must find those people who are mad enough to live blinded by the insanity of their own imaginative solutions, let it rain searing stakes in soul slicing bouquets and make me mad to be so alive! 5am is my favorite time of day as I join the lonely in their ambiguous parade, as we watch the once waking world slip away.

A hunger pain and I whinnied away; I thought of the man by his side I had at 4 am laid. I wondered why I felt this way, so deprived and luxuriously weakened in the eyes of the saints- could it be that love for me is the war just the same as for the robbers and the thieves and the drug lords and their ratty ways? 5am is my favorite time of day, not to be so wrapped in the comfort of a cave in this maze but to be shocked into discovery, sparking electricity generates to turn me on; I become active and awake, thirsty for whatever remains of yesterday’s civilized rave.

And so I say, ‘I cannot stay the palm tree sits under the moon where gunmen crawl and I miss you my sweet silver groom but I’ll be alone in the outskirts of this wretched urban grave, wandering around at 5am, my favorite time of day.’

‘No potion for completion just reconciliation in the act of folding your chilled hands; now pray, my deary, my darling, but not be saved and not to be whole, not to be bothered or covered or sustained or without your unique mental mold; sit and listen to your entire body breathe, it knows how to carry you into the next morning scene, take a sip of this very air you shine bright enough for even the Gods to care and slow your pace when the hooded ones stare they will look at you to learn the lessons you will dare tell the story of life’s love and loss, of its bloodless wars and its childhood scars, of its poisons and filth and plastics and soiled food, its leeches and laws and jailhouse cocoons, of its slavery systems and systems of deceit, of its crooked fame and its broken dreams. But do not forget what the wise man says: the true character of a man is revealed to himself in the absence of light at 5am.’

‘Then who am I at 5am?’

‘My deary, my darling the reason I am here is to figure the same thing; I’ve been coming here to ponder year after year. What I have found? Not an answer or a piercing sound; not a premonition or image has stained my busy eyes, just myself in a moment and more slipping down this muddy slide. People have come and gone, they have asked and wondered too, some have spit or asked for change, others have come to beg for a spoonful of anything that would make them complete, they come to me because I stand, not moving and never obscene, I offer what I can, it turns out a moment of exchange is more valuable than the wealth of the wealthiest man. To have been here for you is my purpose today, this serves you as well, my deary, my darling; my 5am runaway.’

I left him there as the one star showered the morning haze and as I pulled away he laughed, he grumbled, he pointed to the sun’s rays. I looked upwards and felt nothing more, ‘such is life’ I said with a shrug, there is much to do to; I’m in the midst of a war. The clock strikes 6 and I am no more inspired; just another happy body with a mindful of squandered fire. No wonder 5am is my favorite time of day, when all confusion is silenced, where the world is at its mystical break.