I miss you a thousand night skies...

Finding my Heart, another [true] Short Story

I walked for 5 (maybe 6) hours in circles through downtown Boise (it seems a good place for the easily lost, and rats who like a mazes). When my buns would freeze, I'd go warm them in the same coffeehouse, or the one bookstore with couches in the back. But I'd head out again - in search for my heart - one could poetically say. But this time it wasn't so much poetical as God-dammed practical. There was a moment, when I almost nearly found it: the rain was starting to come down hard, and I just pushed my beanie back a bit, and welcomed the drops on my forehead as I turned up my music, and marched feeling so freezing and yet alive. "Life!" I recall exclaiming in the echo of my mind. But other than that moment, I was mostly alone. And I felt that too. The heart that I desired was so far away, how I'd hope to be reconciled with it in the Northern cold.

But alas, I walked and walked, feeling the hallowed whistling wind reach inside me, until it was almost 8:30pm and I entered the same coffeeshop for the 3rd time. A little girl of 6 ran up to me, and asked earnestly: "Would you like to donate for a heart?" I followed her to a little table haphazardly strewn with tiny cut-out-colored hearts. She told me her name was Josie Wolf, and we became friends. I asked for her help to pick out the best one, and traded her 50 cents for it. It fit in half my palm. It was one of the smaller ones, but I really love it. All the rest of the evening, I sat in a seat by the window, and Josie's family (the owners of the shop) and a few punk-rockers hung out and watched a movie on a projector. For a moment, I went and sat close to the screen, but after a few minutes I was so offended by the images of demon-like dragons and gargoiled villains, I quickly returned to the window perch. Solemnly I rested there, wishing how I could shield my little friend's eyes from such haunting images. "Perhaps there is just one child out there that I can love, and shelter and protect from gruesome things." Hopefulness brewed at this thought, as my wheels spun with purpose. Josie came back to me, and we chatted some more. Such love for her flowed in me. I felt seen by God again, finally, more than in a long while. He was with us, there. It took 5+ hours of directionless walking before I was finally led to fogged up windows and this sweet girl, and - I do believe - the heart I had been searching for. Who knew it'd only cost me 50¢.

Hashtiggy Truth

When you are poor, and have nothing to give, give your smile, and your recipient will be the richest in the land. For wealth is a thing of sunlight. Be happy for love and life, for if you have them, you are quite complete. And money is a very silly thing, if ever a man thought it could come close to bringing him even an ounce of true happiness.

I've been hungry in the sun. And stuffed, but empty in the shadows.
I'd gladly be poor all my days* if it meant we could laugh together cross-legged on cement; if you'd give me your smile so that I could brag to all my friends of owning such a prize. How I'd treasure it, and never cease to see the miracle in this one sort of greatest gift of all.

*also, I've learned the secret of loving refried beans. 

Only yours, is all I can be...

Sometimes the wind

must rustle through your hair

and be carried across the prairies

to drift under my nose

it is such a welcomed gift

and you seem almost as near

as when I could feel the warmth 

of your smile against my cheek

still you paralyze me 

though so many miles away

I'm assured of this love

when the memory of a scent 

brings me to my knees

and makes my heart so wobbly

moved by you 
oh darlin'

I'm waitin for you

When things get really hard...

I will remind myself that I am but a reed.

No Dross

All I want in life is to make love, be in a folk band, eat artichokes and live in a van. Is that really so hard, and out of reach? Seriously though. I could even cut out artichokes, and be happy.

A Short Story

Tom wanted to fly. He had a bit of hippie in him, back in the 70ies even when he was in the Navy. He had a surfboard and played in a band. And then who know's how it happened, if it was a fast or slow process, but his wife started falling down, he had rambunctious boys, and he got caught up in putting food on the table, and the 9-5, and somewhere in all of that, he forgot he actually had wings. They weren't really practical, afterall, he told himself, so he started living with his face down, locked inside the lines of maps and mazes and plans. He worked hard; and soaring, he told himself was a thing for another land, in a coming time. He walked about with the desire in him, but it grew smaller, with the passing days, and after so many flightless years.

There was a deeply guarded part of him that at times became so lost and covered, he'd misplace the key to it for months at a time. But it was always there, whether he knew it or not. He'd cover it or hide it or deny it, or make it out to be something else. But inside that place lived a boy who dreamed, full with a romantic, longing heart that could see, when the clouds were parted just right, that flying was the most glorious thing his soul could do.