the purpose driven life

To till the soil. To cause a scene. To be the cause of something. I’m scared all the time. To be less alone in my fear. To cook in cast iron, and confide in its dark porosity. To celebrate the interval between our unbeings. Because survival is insufficient. To find what’s hidden between the blades of grass, in the breaths between kisses, the empty mouth after swallowing. To search the crawlspace for vermin and their filthy children, and to cherish them, take their picture, show it to strangers at the airport terminal.

To figure this out. We can figure this out. Just keep talking to me.

To be digested. To shoot and leaf and bud and blossom, to bee and pollen and yellow and fall, and twig and snap and rot and silt. To be carried, swept elsewhere, slurped up, pissed out. To re-enter, to exit again. How long was I a puddle of goose shit on a matte black slate?

To ask questions like, “what’s the point?” To ignore the correct answers and try something stupid. To patch holes in the drywall. To weep, to wax indignant, to cease all efforts at understanding. To be pliable, to circle the same spot three times like a dog before lying down. To polish an old mirror until the lines in your face stand out like the bunched carpet of Appalachia. To mourn everything and everyone we’ve lost. We’ve lost so much and so many but I still have you and I promise, you still have me. 

To finally see what’s been in front of us all along. And then to look away. 

To find the unblemished holiness in every inch of it. 

To stop looking away.