This Is What Always Is

pondering grace
amidst the twinkle
wistful thinking
evermore

infinity roots
ascending
compassion
at the fore

nostalgically immune
the legacy seed
romantics chant
Om Shanti

(yes please)

plush in a world
of wide-eyed arousal
rebirth is keen

look at us!
glowing
again

⌘

The Faded Sleeve

“My fingers smell like citrus. How strange,” he said while sliding the cranberry curtain a smidge to his right so he could get a good look at the family across the street tossing toys into the backseat of their four-door coupe.
“They must be going to her mom’s house,” he reckoned while taking an unhurried step along the sun soaked hallway of his second story apartment. “For dinner,” he elaborated.
“And I shall make asparagus with baked parmesan,” he announced while gazing downward at a dusty crate of records from the ‘70s.
“Perhaps I’ll listen to Alice Coltrane,” he declared while delicately bending a knee to browse the albums, patiently flipping from one to the other, but also, curious about the wall map above his head: the United States of America; ripe with purple and green pushpins that formed the shape of a mushroom.
He returned his gaze to the vinyl as a wailing fire truck rumbled down Druid Park Drive.
“Om to my kundalini rising, here she is,” he whispered excitedly, pushing himself up from the wooden floor into a legit gangsta lean, with the album “Journey in Satchidananda” tucked beneath his arm.
“It’s a full moon tonight,” he murmured while spying a folded piece of paper buried deep inside the left-hand pocket of his saffron robe. “What the?”
He repeated the mantra in his head: Breathing in, two, three, breathing out, five, six.
“It’s decided, I will invite the downstairs neighbor for brunch. Then I can ask,” he paused to exhale a hangdog sigh, “if my nag champa chaps their tranquility.”
Filled with unreliable confidence, he prudently walked to the end of the hallway, stopping at the mouth of the living room to unfold the diminutive note he found in the confines of his hooded cloak. It read: “Sprinkle the lemon on your asparagus.”
After a mindful exhale, he gingerly lowered himself into a lotus position on the crimson yoga mat in front of the turntable. He slid the record from the faded sleeve and reverently played the B-side first.

⌘

Instead of Vengeance

Mercy! She felt better after a toke. Was it naive to be redeemed by a puff a smoke?

When he drove the beltway between Baltimore and the District of Columbia he invoked an inner mantra: do not engage the serpent.

Her prose was a retelling of countless yesterdays. But she eventually grew tired of that approach. Nowadays she conjured voices for an infinite self. It didn’t matter if she told the truth anymore.

When he smoked weed he couldn’t read books. He could read, but he kept reading the same sentence over and over, which was annoying. So when he read, he’d sip a slow brewed dark roast instead.

She thought failure was a hoax so she removed the word from her lexicon in 1999.

He drove the distance between Maryland and Virginia countless times and he always succumbed to road rage. He couldn't shake it. He was seduced by anger and increasingly concerned. Driving was a miserable test of ego.

She appreciated an amusing page turner but she slowed down every now and again to ponder a bit of gospel.

He never liked the idea of declaring his lack of ambition. "So what do you do?" asked the barfly at the 2-for-1 happy hour in Midtown. His face wilted in reply. But if queried, "What do you obsess about?" He was fully attentive.

She used to drink red wine.

He enjoyed watching the Pittsburgh Steelers but he muted the announcers and the commercials. He didn’t talk to his family much but when he watched the games he thought about them.

She isolated herself from society yet delighted in the quotidian comforts of a liaison.

Temper is revealing, and the last time he drove to DC—he was cool as a cucumber. He practiced self reflection on a QWERTY keyboard and a yoga mat.

They are ready to write the next chapter.

⌘