I’m counting paces.
The distance between the warmth of my hearth
and my still-beating heart.

The shortest distance between two points
is just a handful
of measured steps
a mouthful
of tentative breaths
a fistful
of glove
and a heart full
of quiet tenacity.

with these tools I could walk anywhere-
name the points and I’ll join them
with a
trail
of
measured
footsteps.

The snow silences everything.
I walked,
nearly barefoot,
into the whited sepulchre
of my backyard this
evening.
And everything was white
and the same
and silent
like the
grave.

I hummed a low note
just to break the
silence.
Just to make
absolutely
sure I was not
in fact
already dead.

It was
almost
a perfect moment
of absolute oneness
and sameness
and purity.

And as I began to **** into the unbroken blanket of snow, I pondered
if we are not
destined
to break the silence.

The way down has been a screaming horse on fire blundering its way on

    Down,
         Down,
    Down.

Last Saturday was the bottom.
The absolute lowest the sun will dip the absolute earliest in the day.
So we drank ourselves more than half to death and spit whiskey at the sky screaming
"I made it this far!
I took everything you threw and walked the coals to this day-
I dare you to end me now!"
And the night drew on and I walked to a park with a pond with a friend
We threw snowballs at the sleeping geese
And talked about our losses and our victories
-And there was an obvious weight on one side of that scale-
We talked big fish and sea monsters until the church bells rang across town
And the Catholics walked with their guilt to the cathedral on first.
We stumbled home
-blasphemers, but free of guilt-
And talked women and war
Until we found our way to our house in the ghetto.

So that's how the way back up began:
Too hungover to work
Too broken down to fornicate
Too weak to wage war

And it occurred to me at that moment
That if we have crossed the first half of the valley,
we are now walking uphill
And the worst may well be

Yet to come.

I can't come back.
Sorry, pastor, I can't come back.
Sorry mom and dad.

I can't come back.

I have seen crippled men beg for pennies outside the mile-high walls that guard the glittering, gem-encrusted Vatican.
But I haven't seen Christ.
I have seen good men's funerals picketed by angry mobs all swearing to be the hands of God.
But I've never met the rest of Him.
We've seen holocausts, crusades and conquests **** millions in his name.
But I have never heard His voice.
And I think those men holding those guns missed the point as far as his commandments go.

But that's not why I can't come back.

I ducked out from under the umbrella of religion and I felt the rain
And every day since I've been learning to take the wet with the dry rather than seeking shelter in what's comfortable.
And what's more, I've gotten a clearer view of the sky than ever before
And without that umbrella
I have seen something.
Or the outermost edge of something-
Something unimaginably large
Something not only too big for words, but too big to see all at once.
Something bigger than me and you and god and everything.
And I can't unsee that.
I've surrendered to the fact that not I, my children, or their children will be able to fully comprehend the vastness of everything,
But I am willing to die incomplete before it.

So sorry mom and dad.
Sorry god.
I found my own truth.

and that’s why I can’t come back.

A steamy trail of particulate vapor issues from her lips
tracing the outline of her silhouette and rising
up,
up,
it diffuses into nothingness

Don’t listen to what your parents or teachers tell you, kids-

smoke is very ****.

she exhales again

slithers languidly through the still air
stretching for something-
rolls across my coffee table
like dunes in fast-forward
drips off the edges-

-gone.

She puffs a thick ring at me
it crosses through the void space toward me;
I reach out to touch it- to grasp it
and it dissipates;
she grins-

such teasing.

Smoke is-
and
is not-
it traces the airflow-
the negative space
like a jungle cat pretending to be
the light between the leaves

she knows this
and she can see that I know she does

Smoke
is why I am so captivated
So fascinated
so mesmerized
so transfixed
by her
and in general-

by women.

I am riding through the old-time suburbs.
The city of salt pillars
I pass a bike or three
A jeep
A van with a six-inch lift and chipped orange paint
I round a corner
And suddenly all is quiet
Except for the squeaking of my old bicycle chain.
And I ex-
Hale

If you were here you would ask me why I sighed
And I would reply
"It's not a sigh, I just forgot to breathe"

I just forgot to breathe.

And I'm breathing now
My shoulders are at ease
And my bike is squeaking.
I wonder how often pockets of silence bubble up in the city
For a moment-
In this one spot-
It is still-
And then a car drives by and we resume.
I found myself in a pocket of silence in the center of a beehive this afternoon
And I sighed
Because the silence made me realize that I was holding my breath
So I exhaled
And relaxed

And then a car drove by
And we resumed.

Madeline had visions of you falling down the stairs this afternoon. She was sipping her coffee and reading a scrap of paper that had materialized on her table from some article about a meteor somewhere and it hit her like a ton of feathers or a ton of bricks.

Doesn't really matter which.

She gasped back into the present and fell out of her chair spilling the tar-black grog she had been pawing at to the oaken hardwood and sat staring at her hands there for a minute or more.

They were pink against the tan-ish floor.

Pushing against it she regained her footing and reached for the home phone her friends chided her for owning and called me crying you won't believe what I just saw I can't believe what I just saw I think we need to call her do you think she's alright?

I had just gotten off my flight.

I don't know I said I don't know who you mean where are you are you alright I just got back into town I was going to grab my bags and catch a taxi do you need me to pick you up

She finally noticed the fallen cup.

Catching her breath he slowed her pace and started to stammer how she didn't know it didn't matter never mind I need to go and make a call I'll let you know when I get out.

I still had no idea what she was talking about.

She hung up the phone and placed another call after a half hour no six hours no six weeks of ringing someone picked up the line she had dialed and she wept and laughed and asked if everything was okay and if she needed to go and if so how far she was a primed cartridge in a loaded gun

Everything was silent and the room spun

A voice replied something inaudible and Madeline laughed and cried not cried and laughed and wondered how she could have been so rash to believe a daydream like this

She rose and gathered all her bits

And together they walked her down the hall from her sun room to the kitchen down the stairwell-

And she fell.

And for two point five one two three seconds everything stood still but her and the world stopped turning she couldn't hear her own gasp or whether she screamed or laughed or cried she just hung in the balance she hung from gods fingers she hung above a pool of sharks and a pit of lava and everything she had never done she fell far and fast and hit the ground

An no one knows whether that made a sound.