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

⌘

Bona Fide

Today his mother told him to never go into the basement.
“Why?” he asked.
  “Because I said so,” she answered.
  “But I’m 13 now, I understand things. Is it toxic? Haunted? You can’t say ‘never’ without an explanation.”
Long silence.
“Ask your father.”
  “For fuck’s sake.”
  “Jackson! Never, utter, that raunch again.”
  “Everything’s never now.”
His mom quietly folded the last pair of undies. “I will invariably love you.”
“Is it because of the still?” he quipped before obliterating his chocolate chip cookie.
“Like I said.”

~

At 6 a.m. the next morning Jackson walked into his parents’ bedroom and poked his dad’s fleshy deltoid with a broom handle.
“For FUCK’S sake!” his father roared.
“Pops. I want to learn how to make corn liquor. I need a job that pays, man, so I can buy a Mac and wax Promethean. I’m focused, resolute. I can clock before school, nights, weekends. I want to be your deputy. POPS! You awake?”
“Now I am. Meet me in the kitchen. Five minutes.”
Jackson ran out of the room, brushed his teeth, snapped on a pair of green rubber gloves and a COVID mask, donned the yellow hard hat and safety glasses his Uncle gifted him for his birthday, and skipped down the hallway with bona fide momentum.

⌘

Do What You Love

How can we survive another day?

I recently read Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, which is an affectionate and detailed memoir by Oliver Sacks. And now—I must acquire a wall size periodic table so I can memorize the noble gases. The idea of reading a book and learning something fresh lifts me from the gravity of stagnation.

I wasn’t a doomsayer at birth, but I was born reluctant.

Everything has always been slightly fuzzy to me. I am constantly practicing The Ninja Warrior Feigning Sleep Pose: which embraces the power of sublime ignorance.

Today is fresh produce. If I bought it yesterday it would be unripe. If I bought it tomorrow it would be decadent.

I love the scene in Silver Linings Playbook where Bradley Cooper throws the Hemingway book out the window because he wasn't satisfied with the ending.

"The world's hard enough as it is guys. It's fucking hard enough as it is." — Pat Solitano

My bedridden grandma was an avid reader. When I visited her in the convalescent home I would always bring her two things: a pint of bourbon and a whodunit. I would sit in a chair next to her and we'd both read our books, and I'd leave after she fell asleep. On a Friday when the sun was setting low, I watched granny take a nip, then turn a page. Nip, then turn. It was a soothing visual for me, seeing her under the blanket with those rosy cheeks. At the time, I was reading The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, which inspired me to be patient. I was immersed in the poem "Channel Crossing" which read:

"On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul. With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt ship cleaves forward into fury. Dark as anger, waves wallop, assaulting the stubborn hull. Flayed by spray, we take the challenge up, grip the rail, squint ahead, and wonder how much longer such force can last."

When I finished the verse I noticed a peaceful silence. I lifted my eyes and looked at Grandma's gentle face as the mystery slithered out of her hand, bounced off the comforter, and thudded against the dusty wooden floorboard. Her bookmark, freed from the deckled pages, fluttered beneath the hissing radiator, disappearing from view.

⌘