salt – Opinions Of Eye

Brother Trouble and Sister Joy

“You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.” ― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

omaradel

Not understanding that the two siblings play together, teasing each other and producing a rich experience of life, I usually preferred Joy. Perhaps if I knew only her, life would lose its seasoning, and become bland by contempt of habitual familiarity. It happens though, that after one the other follows, quickly changing the tenor and taste of the ordinary and predictable, into the sublime and extraordinary. The salt of Trouble brings the delight of Joy on the palate of the soul. I take them both, as members of the same family of life that bring a depth and fortitude as well as a lightness and serendipity to this troublesome joy of living.

The Music – Music brings a release

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

I turned the music on today.

I let the pain work its way out and through

my heart to my eyes,

welling up with watery release

I turned the music on today.

I let the tears come rolling on in and down

my face to my lips,

tasting my salty sorrow.

I turned the music on today.

I felt all of it rolling around and across
I let myself go

from my life in this dark room.

I turned the music on today…

Also published in: Broowaha

12062011

Undefined – Is being nothing defined, anything at all?

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” – Bruce Lee

I read a script that’s not mine. I borrowed it from one of the many plays performed in front of me, in books, movies, and on the grand stage of the home of my youth. With a foreshortened future all hope was sterilized, leaving me with no inclination that tomorrow is a viable possibility. Desperate, I grabbed dreams that weren’t my own. I didn’t possess the capability to birth those; but the dreams born by other souls, bestowed by fate to imagine another day. I took hold of the dream of a family. Years later, memories evade me with nothing but a handful of thoughts from all those moments. Next, a dream of religion. Another tragedy of errors. It seemed that I believed too much, a cultist obsession is the adopted child left after true faith leaves. What about belonging? To anything? I laughed as group after group, clique after clique, pushed me away. Finally I came to the end of my chasing. Self destruction, that calling accepted me, pulled me close and loved me with the hate I was accustomed to. That’s where I find myself, scraping back the detritus of conformity, aborted dreams, and superficial survival, playing in the puddle of tears, long ago cried, never again to grace my face with those salty trails. Forcing my mind to comprehend dreams, so difficult a process, full of discouragement with disappointing trivial drama, I breathe. Pushing forward, whatever direction that may be, is tough, going backwards offers a comforting alternative. I live in the present, scripting my dreams daily, then burning them at the alter of change every evening. Is being nothing that can be defined, anything at all?

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

Undefined – Is being nothing defined, anything at all?

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” – Bruce Lee

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

It’s Illegal To Fly – A romantic encounter

“Do you love him?”
Deryn swallowed, then pointed at the screen. “He makes me feel like that. Like flying.”
– Scott Westerfeld, Goliath

The following article was written by Anna Rindfleish, a talented author and blogger, in her blog, annaaa in a fairytaleee. Enjoy.

I can feel the sunshine on my skin,

The way it wraps you up in a cloth so smooth

It feels just as lovely as you once did

Laying on hot sand next to me

Our shoulders would touch, and there’d be this awkward silence

Then you’d smile abruptly, stand, pick me up and rush

Headfirst like the linebacker you are, towards the crashing waves.

You’d laugh and I’d squeal, draped over your shoulder blades.

My dead weight was nothing to you

You use to kiss me under the water

When the waves came and I feared I’d be washed away

You use to say, “Babe, I’m right here,”

You’d lean into me and kiss my forehead

Plant your feet into the sand, your two hands gripping my face.

You’d kiss me and it would be sweeter than honey

Smoother than any diamond green money could buy

Bitter like straight whiskey-

You’d steal my breath from me.

I don’t like that my once cherished memories

How they have these ways of sneaking up on me

I push them down; ignore the feelings

I avoid the places you might be

Close my eyes and count to three

When I see someone who happens to look just like you.

I’m standing in the rain, its pelting drops mangles with tears

Molding my hair into knots, burning my skin like acid would.

I’m standing on a pier and I’m not supposed to be here.

A swell makes the waves crash over the wooden planks.

I should leave.

Then I remember the day we jumped.

A rush so rich, my heart thudded against my chest.

You held so tightly onto my hand

Then wrapped me in your arms just before we hit the water.

When we swam to shore we were arrested.

The cop asked us if it was worth it

You grinned at him so brilliantly, dripping salt water in the back seat of his squad car and said

“Hell yeah.”

When the cop shook his head and asked why

You said, “My baby wanted to know what it would be like to fly.”

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