Forgiveness is sadly done in increments never all
at once never just get it over just forget and
move on…there is a lingering aftertaste a scar, a
shadow that stains…the past reaches forward
to twist a piece of today, asked for demanded
held onto with red hands white knuckles, we
pretend we’re complete; a copy of what we don’t
do when we cry from what we did.

Time arcs across our lives bringing gladness
sadness madness driving our thoughts toward
forward and always a companion beside us
but we falter we fall we fail and we lose sight
of our humanity our insight our common idea
of love and connection and sometimes live in
our own singular direction.

Rarely do we see ourselves in that act of hurting
the script written playacted toward a curtain
call…an audience receiving the brunt the self
we never want to see the mirror image of painful
parody…of ourselves as separate from us, from
the things we know we should be when we should
be who we are.

The increments collect in piles in small orderly
places of memory and myth but never, almost
never, reconstituted as a whole as a complete set
the full spectrum of light that erases the shadow
the stain the last bit of pain…and releases
today to just be today without prologue without
sour aftertaste.

How do we learn to forgive as a whole…to lock the
pieces of the past into that place it lives, a cage
we can peer into, can study but securely quarantines
those failures those stains of despair & lost
redemption…learn to look at the past without
being the past without letting it reach forward
twisting today.

Living in this moment this time this soul…relying on
being happy because happiness is who we are is
forgiveness, is about assembling increments, is
realizing that there are no stains no permanent scars
only shadows disappearing from the bright light
of knowing we are human we are incomplete and
we are in-transit always.

Sometimes we say things because we can’t say
…other things…can’t mean what we want when
we want to mean what we say; words fall out on
unprepared ground; on and into places they’re
not meant for.

Sometimes we do things we never wanted to
never thought we could never had the idea to
but but but they are done…as stand-in’s maybe
other things…but presupposing our intent we
can’t forget they were done

Sometimes we feel things we can’t ever really
know, can’t understand like we do our thoughts
dreams ideas of the world us and living so we
rename them and recreate them into something
we can and it works…sort of

Sometimes we are things we don’t know can
never know; always looking in slices of mirrored
memories to see patches and pieces…just beyond
the reach of dreams…seeing who we are when
we forget who we aren’t

Sometimes we live when all that thinking all that
motion madness contrives to drag our sight our
thoughts away from believing what we already
believe knowing what we already know and finding
that…we can just be

Reaching out in your balanced…in your stretching arc
you span a distance—some distance—can be far short
can be forever and can be never but reaching is the
reason the motion the why

Seeing the end state the goal the thing the point of
disappearance and convergence; you reach and you are
by doing so by having the idea by initiating the
internal machinery you are

Living seems a very short straight line compared to
stars to planets and ends of ends of time and space but
when looked at closely at sub-atomically at tiny
detail…it is anything but

Being is a vibration a wave of energy swapping and sliding
across the space between then and now and tomorrow
and inside and outside and all happy opposites placed
end to end within your dreams

Ending is nothing is everything is an insignificant line on
a useless form meant to note a change a transition as
waves become particles, are waves again and again
forever…and are always now

Starting is the other side the underside the front side the
reverse of what was before; the friend of what is now
all lined up waiting for your soul your mind your energy
to reach out once again.

The passing of the empty hour, a
motionless minute of standard sadness,
regular like the seasons, he lay his head
on trusted pillow on forgotten dreams…
weeping tears of fear and resignation,
all aligned with a vision
of his life denied.

Designed by shadow by fate by
reckoning and estimation he died the
way he ultimately lived; quiet alone and
empty with none of the echoes considered
required in a social world, in a miss-
matched life of piety and progress he
flowed less than he ebbed.

And such large dreams they were with
bright fortresses of happiness all shining
and strong against the tide the time
of emotional negligence against the
never ending battle between now and
then, against the need and the want and
the effort to not fall apart.

It was birth then was school and as a
prodigy yet unearthed he excelled at
being who he was, who destiny
set him to be…a rolling ball toward the
edge knowing seeing feeling the drop
coming; wildly patient as the razor
slice of reality approached.

College, the first sign of grey clouds of
blurred reality, depression deep sorrow of
simply being alive without permission
granted…without consult or quibble he lived
without living finally he thought but it wasn’t
and he met and he married and he didn’t
know why.

Work became his life’s demanding twin
mindless motions derived from habit from
sadness from the dull thud of time stamping an
impatient foot toward a goal end objective
less understood as tolerated as mortgage
and status and circles of friends traded
looks of quiet expectation.

His existence a show watched day in and
day out, without commercial break without
taste smell feeling his hands hanging
useless eyes forever scanning expressions
and greetings, goodbye’s and hello’s waiting
for the one recognized, the one made
from truth.

Marriage became divorce became an empty
heart; dissolved—so painfully slowly—into
a single light bulb hanging in an almost
empty room…his body lay where his forgotten
dreams pulsed once, twice and then were
gone like a small hesitant breath that
slips quietly away.

A last idea seeps from his consciousness
as soft darkness consumes him, bright for
an instant then fades, the last flare of a
conscious mind; “Fear denied me life denied
me strength denied me all and it’s father
author creator dies with me now and
sadly…I am finally happy.”

We all have an idea, it
sits in the back of the
class, behind the closet
door in the basement
of our mind
where it can’t be seen but
its always there, always
conflicting and influencing
as we walk backwards
against the winds of
change…the inexorable
revolution of time over and
over toward where we
don’t know who what how
we are or what we will be
in the absence of fate destiny
and that ever present
lotto ticket on the fridge.

The idea is of forward and
backward of up and down but
mostly it is about love and
about where we find it in
ourselves, our friends, our
wives and husbands
strangers and enemies but
we are afraid that we can’t
define it picture it can’t
imagine it within us…so
how will we know, how
will we sense when it’s
there…and that rolls around
inside, bouncing off the
walls we put up to keep
us sane.

The idea is our humanity is
where we live when we all
decide to live the lives
we should, can, want to so
difficult and painful the
idea contains and
contradicts and always
always always calls out to us
on dreams in the oceans of
thought our bodies float
and drown in…calling
soft words of love and
belonging when we know
should know we already
are loved and belong
to ourselves.

It was casual at first, a glance a look a certain shake
of the head when laughing a way of saying of meaning
of walking without destination yet determined to get
there…he smiled and her world converged into that very
small place, where her soul never surfaced, never felt
daylight and she was happy for a while…for a minute but
she could not stop asking herself why and how.

Casual turned into familiar without notice, without
advertisement the bed became crowded nicely, became
half the space with twice the comfortable but the
questions were unmade like the bed as the casual
became the past without mourning the loss, without
observing the transition we created a pattern of
him and her, of she and he.

Familiar edged over into safe somewhere on the
path…settling like a dog walking around 3 times then
shifting haunches…and mornings were no longer new
no longer a surprise on the other side of eyelids
consumed by joint bank accounts that overtook personal
growth as learning was displaced by living…a simple
fact became the entire story.

Safe plodded past the 20’s and deep into the 30’s
while locations changed; a 4th floor walkup segued
to a 3 bedroom house somewhere far into Zombieland
where different became less, much less, than required
…became a beacon of conversation—none good—all
distracting to the routine to the get up and go; to the
pressure to compete for the best lawn.

Children appeared along the way with all that that
means with chocolate fingers with striking honesty with
moments growing into memories irrespective the
intent…and play dates became real dates became
college and lives apart while the safety of standing still
was no longer as clear, no longer belonged to
her lexicon, her perspective.

He no longer fit the mold cast so long ago, and
without changing he changed everything so standing-
sitting-being still became a labor an act of desperation
an act…period…while internal forgiveness went into
hiding while life was still filled to the brim, still moving
slowly toward the extinction of her soul, she opened her
eyes and saw herself clearly.

She told herself this story this journey this ending of
a beginning started long ago yet set to start tomorrow
as she too quickly maybe removed the impediments
constructed in that safe place on that best lawn, in
her time…majestically she destroyed her own world
knowing without a clear field without a life removed of
things there was no way forward.

It wasn’t casual it wasn’t safe it wasn’t familiar…it was
a yawning chasm of nothing, full of shadows and
sharp edges…she jumped when she let go; time
rolled away from her as her legs pumped, her feet
sought purchase among significant heart and soul ache
among confused friends…among a him and a them
left worried in Zombieland.

Shadows and sharp edges become casual and
familiar quite unlike herself she embraces and holds
close the idea that she believes herself to be, the
moment held constant by her resonance and her
desire toward an ending completely described within
her own mind…she was a person once, before, and
then a family…now she is a person again.