I no longer believe in revolution. Giddy hope strangled by the eventuality of surrender, like a paper flower disintegrating under the rain. Arms held aloft, kneeling in the mud, awake and temporary, it’s our duty to live another day pressed against the wall. 

Grinning, we fight: late night study sessions, takeout, chopsticks gnawed to splinters. There are moments when I feel rabid, heart full of darkness, wanting nothing but myself, momentary satisfaction, a void-like maw filled with dried marigolds and broken spiderwebs, and little notes saying I’ll be back in an hour, signed I love you. Growing upward, thinning with the never ending atmosphere. 

We call Genghis Khan brutal. The Ancient Mongols left their dead open to the Blue Sky, so vultures could pick them clean of flesh. I suppose there is a brutality to clarity, to wiping civilizations off the earth. Wouldn’t it be lovely to look up and see heaven? 

We humans are meant to be dirty. You can’t scrub out the stench of failed love poems, or corpse laden battlefields, or animal sacrifice, or perfume. Our temples are forever stained and holy only to ourselves.

He was a strange bird. Not your average student or friend. He never talked much and often you would find him folding up into himself.

To say he was an intovert would almost be an understatement. I always thought of him being selective with the company he chose.

Ask him his favorite thing to do, he would say reading and playing chess. He found in chess, he was like a pawn, small in size and a different shape from the other pieces. He called pawns, sacrificial lambs willingly going to slaughter to save their King, to protect their Queen, and defend honor with their last breath.

Those words alone told me the kind of person he was.

When it came to reading, he almost always talked about the supporting characters that gave the hero the ability to shine. He would say if it weren't for them, the hero would be just another person in an endless stream of words on a page.

As strange as he was to most people, once you were able to ger close enough to know him, you would find he has a big heart he would unfold and take in the pain of one he thought so dearly of.

And here I stand, nearly sixty years later, looking at his headstone, slowly shaking my head and as I walk, I whisper these words, "Ori Gami, the world never knew you the way you wanted them to, but I did."

Good Morning

Good Afternoon

Good Night

Life is a Journey

there is no wrong

there is no right

Life is an experience

accept or deny

There’s no way

around it

Let go of the guilt

don’t feel shame

that is society playing the

’BLAME GAME”

Every choice you make

is for YOUR

experience

To feel it and know it.

Make it a lesson

Don’t dwell on it

and have regret

Sometimes destiny

plays a part, it’s NOT

“you deserve it”.

Know who you are

Don’t let circumstances

define you

Know your heart

Be strong

be a Warrior

for yourself

When you know your heart

you know who you are

you can stand STRONG

in your choices, even when society

says “you’re wrong”

There is NO Wrong

There is No Right

Be You Shine Your Light

Let go of all the Shame

and give society the bird

You’ll be alright

Love You

AK

#selflove