More Often Than Sometimes

How to be a person:

ONE: Find your voice.

Know that not all languages contain words. Your voice could be music. It could be dance. It will be what expresses you most sincerely. Your voice is an art. If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.

TWO: Remember that you are an artist.

Regardless of how constantly the world will try to drive it out of you or how a ‘real job’ will try to bury that part of you that communicates your feelings when language fails you. You are an artist. Whether it is with food or building robots. You will know your medium the instant you realize how in love you are with what it brings out of you.

THREE: Apologize.

You will not always be right. You will not always be wrong. You will hopefully always be learning. Atonement is a sacrifice of pride. Explanation of why you did what you did or said what you said will not vindicate you. If the cost to heal someone is only your pride then apologize and be grateful that you’ve received peace at such a bargain.

FOUR: Forgive.

Realize that some people are still learning. If forgiveness is not possible then think of everything you’ve ever wanted to be forgiven for but weren’t. Hold that uneasiness in your mind until you feel your desire for absolution becoming a wish. Realize you can grant this wish for others. If you are waiting for forgiveness, be prepared to wait. Be prepared to stand in the path of time and wither. Respect that forgiveness is difficult. Not all traspasses are equal and not everyone will heal according to your schedule.

FIVE: Accept that farting is funny.

Granted not always appropriate and sometimes unpleasant. But if you cannot laugh, if you are more offended by a fart than by war, famine, political corruption, deforestation, racism, sexism, classism, the wrongfully imprisoned, the treatment of women, the foreclosing on homes while banks debts are forgiven, if a fart offends you more than any of that then you are not a person and you cannot be helped. Join the cult. Have some kool aid.

SIX: Know that love is a vulnerability but not a weakness.

Love is the volunteer in you that raises its hand and steps forward without needing to be rewarded. Love is a currency that functions in reverse because the only way to be wealthy with it is to give more of it away.

SEVEN: Don’t laugh to fit in.

Laughter should be honest. If there is no sincerity in your joy then your happiness will be a forgery that fools only yourself.

EIGHT: Do not fear to be hated.

But be cautious towards those inhabited by hate. You will be hated. Regardless of who you are, what you say or what you do. You will be hated for your successes or your failures. For good looks or bad looks. For intelligence or stupidity. Hate is the child of the hater. Nurtured by the belief that has fed you. Often you will have no control for what you are hated for. Know that antipathy becomes the master of its owner. Know that if you are going to be hated regardless of who you are then be fearless enough to be who you want to be. Hate is no more eloquently articulated than in a poetry of the expression “Not Your Fucking Problem.”

NINE: Try.

The tiniest dream that you try to make happen is worth more than the biggest dream you never attempt.

TEN: Be savagely thankful and continuously in awe of the power you possess.

I’ve been away

It might be more accurate to say that I’ve been here while you’ve been there

And ‘there’ was where I always wanted to be but wasn’t

As if Want knows what I need but Need doesn’t

Need never knew you

The way I’m still not sure I do

Guess I’m still learning

Still concerning myself with the things I don’t know

I don’t know

Don’t know if your breath is the wind and I’m just a kite

I don’t know if you need me but if you do

I’ll be home tonight

*song*

I’ll be home tonight

Despite the road throwing rocks in my bedroom window and begging me to keep it company

The road and me, we are lonely even when together

But you

Whether I’ve spent one month away from you or one minute

Love doesn’t understand distance

Because even when you’re away from it, you’re still in it

And though I’m not sure how I know now

That every red light secretly wishes it were a green light

But I’m wishing those wishes get granted

So that they’ll speed me home tonight

*song*

I will wake in the morning with the road tugging at my restlessness

And regardless of this I will reminisce only of last night

When you closed my eyes and touch became sight

My hands moving slowly over you as if I couldn’t stop staring

Our arms around us as if we are wearing each other to bed

And in the morning the sunlight bled through the blinds

Only to reminds us we have eyes

We’ve kept them closed, not to fend off the day or keep out the light

Just to remind us what last night will look like

Tonight

You are dying. Don’t panic.

In this, we are equal.

Regardless of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, political linen, preference of music, or favorite shape of animal cracker.

We are dying.

Our differences in thought, manner and action cannot relieve us from the obligation of our death.

With a dignified or ridiculous dying will happen with or without our acceptance.

Whether by natural causes or by accident. By sickness, disease or famine. By boarding a plane or turning the wrong way up a one-way street. By ordering the chicken in a far too sketchy restaurant or by really intense orgasm, which believe me is my preference.

However it happens, it will happen.

And everything you were will be reduced to a box being ticked off from a really long to do list.

Perhaps Death is collecting us like stamps. Hoping to one day have enough postage to send in his resignation because Death must be the most mind-numbing job in the universe.

And as far as excuses go, I bet Death has heard them all.

I didn’t tell my wife that I love her. I didn’t tell my husband he was a dick. I didn’t tell my cousin to erase my hard drive. I’m not too worried about all the Justin Bieber videos but I don’t want anyone to know that I was a huge, almost stalker-like fan of Shane Koyczan. How embarrassing.

Whatever your excuse is, Death’s heard it.

And responds with a gentle questioning:

What were you waiting for?

When did your hesitation become a full stop?

I warned you this whole time! I happened all around you. I took away the ones you knew and the ones you didn’t. And the ones you didn’t, either ended up on the news or in a section of the local newspaper so I’m sure you at least knew of them. Some were so mighty that everyone knew who they were. And regardless of their fame or wealth I took them as well. Because in the end I always get the headline.

What made you think you would be different?

Your instinct will be to respond with a statement:

I’m special!

But before your lips crack open to trumpet forth your answer like a kind of supreme validation, Death will silence you with a readied response:

You are all special!

Your response to this statement will be both adolescent and familiar:

I didn’t ask to be born… man!

It is a statement so stupid that at one point in your life you believed it without reservation because you thought it to be the peak of logic and reasoning.  

But the statement “I didn’t ask to be born” when dissected, when pulled apart and examined, when pinned to the dish with its organs exposed, says only this:

You blame your life for your death.

And that’s about as useful as blaming cupcakes for being a cuter version of cake.

Think of the book you never wrote.

The hands you never held.

The movie you never made.

The chance you never took.

What are you waiting for?

You are dying.

So think of all the nevers.

The never evers.

Never had a staring contest with my dad.

Never got to be the better at I told my friends I was gonna be.

Never ever.

Never built a tree house.

Never invited someone I like up to the tree house I built.

Never got a kiss from the someone I like, after inviting them up to the tree house I built.

Never told the someone who I liked, but never kissed, after inviting them up to the tree house I built, that kissing them was my plan the whole time and we could die at any giving moment because I am a shitty tree house builder.

We are dying.

Do not let a belief in an afterlife excuse you from the responsibility of doing something beautiful with your life.

Even if it’s one failure after the next.

Fail. And fail again.

And this is gonna be hard for some of you to hear but,

Fuck Yoda!

There is try and there is value in trying.

Risk is your endorsement of hope.

Your fear of death is the realization that you haven’t even tried to press your hands into the air and leave your imprint in the horizon for others to chase and follow.

Don’t panic.

There’s still time.

But you are dying.

Don’t panic.

You are only dying.

I want the kind of love that turns my past into an etch-a-sketch and shakes the broken out of me

A selflessness that teaches me how to love myself unselfishly

And a memory that reminds me of all the things I still wanna be

A hindsight less than 20/20 so I can’t see the past that’s haunting me

I want an apology that means something

Give me the honey without the sting

I’ll shove one back and thank you because you brought the things I couldn’t bring

The thing is doubt has brought me about as much luck as a no leaf clover

I spend each day trying to find a way to get around everything I can’t get over

And I try to die, I’m ashamed to admit, figuring if they bury me I’d at least get under it

So shake this broken out of me

As if broken is an art and my masterpiece looks like debris

The world taught me a promise is not a guarantee

It’s something that can break

But if you take my broken I guarantee I’ll shake your broken into me

 *song*

Lonely is a highway and it’s one you can’t hitchhike on

It’s a lone stretch of road with a center line sowed in to it and it looks kinda like a scar

There’s no map that says “YOU ARE HERE” to tell you where you are

I learned you’ll never know how far you’ve come if all you ever do is go

I know stop signs and love amber lights because they like to take things slow

I know those who spend their lives like quarters at a slot machine

And they spend each second gambling away all the things they could’ve been

Brightly burning stars, minds like flame, love like querosene

And they burned out because it’s hard to read the fineprint when it’s written in the in-between

Know we’re not the only broken ones, we have no number, just an estimate

The number grows everyday and there’s no way we can keep track of it

So if nothing else at least you know you’ll never be alone

Our reflection is a stain in the broken pieces of all the things we should’ve been

 *song*

Some of us read like novels and others like short stories

Some take what little love we have left trying to complete our inventories

Is there anything left to give after giving away everything we’ve got

Have we traded away our memories trying to forget what we forgot

A shot in the dark that’s just my version of a hail mary

I don’t believe in God but it’s that shot of hope

Trying to keep alive what the world keeps trying to bury

How do we let go of all the things we shouldn’t carry

Do we mark our bags with tags set for different destinations

Do we book cruises for our problems and send our baggage on vacations

Truth is we don’t need much

Some food, some drink, from time to time, some touch

A crutch made out of shoulder if that’s something you can spare

All we have to give is time and that’s the truth about to dare

We only get the middle

The part with all the tears and laughter

Everything between once upon and now and happily whenever after

So shake this broken out of me

As if broken is an art and my masterpiece looks like debris

The world taught me a promise is not a guarantee

It’s something that can break