619 am
And I’ve already broken all kinds of rules for the day
And am leap frogging mental road blocks
Heroically though words are appearing on the page
On the digital screen
So like a fighter against forgotten ropes
I keep swinging
And victory is mine
The wins can pile up too. I can get into the cold shower
And go for a run in the cold brooklyn dawn
Before you and your mama wake up
Sleeping peacefully on the couch
In the kitchen pouring cold brew
I wondered what happened to the mouse
I thought about Paris
And how lucky was I to travel the world
To eat croissants in the morning with strong coffee
And the strangeness of being delivered from one life to the next
Comparison is odious
Compare yourself only to the dead
Only to the ones who don’t get another day
Not as a gloating ritual
For life is a challenge
But as a means of focusing your arrival into the moment
With the bullet engine of gratitude
That you get a day
That you get to do the hard things of overcoming your limitations yet again
Or at least making an attempt
The run is gonna suck
But how great to breath into new dreams forming
Running towards realities running away every morning
Who knows for which we have no reason
Where reason goes
One day my love we’ll be on a beach laughing and touching our toes
The ocean will be spinning around our feet and wherever our ankles go
Someone sent me an article where the senate in NYC will vote on a bill allowing for detainment of anyone deemed a threat to public safety
Indefinite detainment at that
All this rhetoric scaring the Russian contingent of the family
They’ve seen this playbook before
The government taking over all the freedoms
Restricting travel
As inflation pumps the poor struggle and get poorer
The ones who benefit from all this making more and more and have the power to keep it going
Nyc is back to a total state of fear like the pandemic just started
Everyone masked up and in total compliance
Lines around the block at every rapid recovery testing facility
Break through cases are the rule and yet the un v’d are blamed for all this droning on
Lock downs seem imminent
And peoples response to the new mask mandates (implied or otherwise)
Let’s me know that in NYC anyway
People will absolutely comply with whatever they are told forever
No questions
No resistance
No question at all that whatever these people tell them is utterly factual and anyone who questions anything about any of this
Is nothing but a lunatic
And that’s two years in with so much evidence that so much of this is highly questionable
It boggles the mind
But Never-mind all that
Question nothing and acquiesce is the law of the land in these parts.
Your mama is concerned that they could shut down travel across state lines
And if these detainment bills are passed
We could be caught in a nightmare worse than the one we already are.
Maybe it’s unlikely
Maybe it’s not
I’ve got no idea
I do what I can to keep my spirits up
Our spirits up
I fight for all that
Day by day
Word by word still appearing on the page
My voice alive in the maze of regret we all crawl through
At a certain point
Your stress level sky rockets
Til you finally let go and let God guide you and the show
We are powerful and we can point ourselves in certain directions
But at a certain point much of this is out of our control
Let go and let God
All this heading into the holiday season
People facing years of depression with no end in sight to any of this
Means mental health will bottom out
Suicide and drug addiction will surge
People need escape from all this
And most don’t have the capacity to find it in the hard things
To go on runs fueled by nothing but faith for better times ahead.
We have you to think about
So we can’t just lay in a bed of nihilism and say
Fuck it to the world
If it wants to be a misery party
Then we know how to play that game too
We can’t do that
We have your smile to protect
(Also faith in God and the innate consequences of this life. I. E. What we do here matters)
Last night we went to the upper west side
To pick up an antique gold mirror your mama bought online
We took the train and you were bundled up and strapped to your mamas chest
We passed by the circus which had tents set up in the middle of the city
Your mama talked about having gone there when she was a kid
I’ve never been I said
Never? She asked
I said I don’t think so. I can’t remember
The whole damn world is a circus and the clowns have taken over riding unicycles of fear
I looked at your eyes
Big and blue darting around and taking it all in
And thought about how fun it will be to show you the wonders of the world
How meaningful to make your smile
Be our goal
To protect you baby child.
Someday I hope you experience Paris
And sitting at a lonely cafe drinking espresso
As people walk by in the rain
With nowhere to go.