if you're going to try, go all the way. there is no other feeling like that.
you will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
you will ride life straight to perfect laughter. it's the only good fight
there is.
--charles bukowski

i'm tired of being beautiful
if you will not take me

..

i starve for more hungering
hunger, the state of most exhileration
empty, wanting, looking at the world with wild eyes
every sight a feast of light

holding at all times in my belly nothing but the mystery
the inexhaustible, immovable what the hell

i step out of my own way

my legs are tight, sore. they refuse ample movement. they snicker and scream down staircases. i take this as sign that i am to quiet now.. see what sits right before me. stop running. why am i always running? always one rash, bull-horned decision or another. running to move, running to stop, running to fill, running to empty. no wonder i am so confused about my many selves and which are real. no wonder i sometimes doubt whether anyone really knows me or not. who are they to know?
seems i never commit.. but really, it's not that, i commit do we part. do i die. do you die too. there is no sideways glance about my commitment, i am here, let us do this. this is no way to enter a place, a role, a habit. things need room, need to breathe, need to choose for themselves.
so many selves to hold space for, so little space in the day. and if only i could remember who these people within me are, and what's important to them, than i could make sure to dig little holes for each. put in the right stuff. there's so much i've learned.. so much i know has brought me back to life at just the right times, those special words, special scents, thoughts, kindling for my soul, that i looked at with large knowing eyes: you're what i live for, there you are! things i etched into my favorite trees, love stories and sonnets, only now that forest has burnt.. and so many of those trees, if standing, tilt unrecognizable. once strong, arms reaching upward, always touching the sky, wanting to fly; now the trees are mute and blinded, fixed in some strange, unknown story. they know not their lines. and this has everything to do with faith. where has it gone? faith?
seems not so long ago, my belief sang clear: life was a melody, every note in its place. nothing occurred without poetic timing: every person a messenger, every starling a saint, every love a remembrance of something ancient and true, the body reawakening.
these days, i'm lucky if i have one coherent conversation everyday. lucky to make some contact, to touch a hand, or catch an eye, or share a laugh for some desperate joke. lucky to have something keep me around.. my soul a balloon on a string: frivolous to the eye, but a time-sensitive treat. what's there to believe in when you dont't touch any hearts? when it's not music that you are able to bring into people's lives, but clumsy steps that break patterns and interrupt dreams?
all my messengers point to different missions, reflect different parts of myself. all parts of myself trust not the others. and why should they? i keep running.

hey blood orange moon
catching young hearts with the skip of your scythe

we finally ran away from home, didn't we?

One regret I am determined not to have when I am lying upon my death bed 
is that we did not kiss enough -Hafiz

as i sit on my porcelain toilet
and shit into the ocean

i wonder about that fish i ate last night

when will we stop shitting on each other
and give it to the hungry earth
who wants it most