You is a three-headed ghost from at least six different past lives. You is an empty canvas, therefore you is always full. You is the one. You is until something better comes along. You is an idea. You is an emotion. You is forever fleeting, therefore you is eternal. You is everyone. Therefore, you is no one. One of the cold comforts of a photographic memory, is that you can’t take away anything I have ever seen. And that is why you is always with me. I’ve seen you. Many sides of you. And I will have you until I see you again and forever after that. Even if I never see you again.
Coyote ugly
“You un-friended me? That’s like a modern-day public pillorying.”
“Oh god, Kalani, you’re so dramatic. I had to cut you off. You kept posting weird shit on my wall. My family reads that you know?”
“I was just telling you that it’s probably not a good idea to friend your kids. Your 16-year-old doesn’t need to know what you look like dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I deactivated my account completely.”
“It actually does. Singling out one person out of 3 billion users is quite a statement, don’t you think? At least now I blend in with the rest of the planet.”
“I wanted my privacy back. And I felt like I had to respond to everyone who contacted me. I don’t need that. I actually feel free.”
“Hippie.”
Look both ways before you cross
Nothing living—actually living—wants to die. Not fish. Not trees. I’m pretty sure bacteria don’t want that petri dish to burn. People are an unusual problem. Who invented self-flagellation? There must have been a reason at the time. Sentience is pain. Not knowing doesn’t hurt. Look at the feral cat smashed on the street. I guarantee he didn’t know it was Wednesday. But if he did and knew there were no more Wednesdays? He might have looked both ways.
Construction
How much of our lives and belief systems are just some construct or other? What we experience in real-time is as often predetermined as it is any sort of real stream of consciousness. In hindsight, it is a rare occurrence where we might surprise ourselves.
The upshot of this realization is that there really are no excuses. Everything is a choice. I own this. I’ve chosen this. This is my choice.
Dervish
I heard the words and did not recognize myself. What had I become? I would never hurt you on purpose. But when I was a whirling dervish, you were just standing too close. Don’t worry, it ends. It all ends. Everything ends. You just have to wait for the moment.
Punk muppets
It’s a success. The Muppets cover Nirvana now. Pearl Jam covers the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau. We made what we wanted for everyone. You might argue it’s been co-opted. But punk is inside now. People who never would have known it have it in their awareness.
Seventy
I don’t understand why people who believe in an afterlife mourn or fear death. What does a 70-year, 70-day, 70-second lifespan mean when compared to forever?
I went to a cemetery two days ago and the marble from just 200 years ago had, by weather, been sandblasted, rendering anonymity to those lying beneath. And the flowers on the graves of the recent dead mocked the empty graves, but stronger still, mocked our hopeless, desperate grasps at permanence.
The ledge
I remember talking you down from there once or twice. That might be the difference between you and me. You came down.
I’m not quite sure if I enjoy the sweaty-palm excitement of maybe almost falling. More likely, the culprit is complacency. A person can get used to almost anything. And after this much time, one might wonder if I didn’t prefer the heights.
It sure does seem a long way down, though.
The calculus of fidelity
So it happened on one of those days when we weren’t really together. Nowadays, that was almost every day. And the calculus of our expected fidelity was never quite calculated anyway. But there was a new glint of something in the reflection of the sun on one of those days. That’s the point, I mean. It only happened because it was one of those days.
I had drinks with a Bumble or Hinge named Jolene, and the first thing I thought to myself was that she was nothing like the song. Nonetheless, when she spoke, I found myself enjoying listening to her. Maybe the Ray LaMontagne version. That might actually be the perfect allusion, though I always hate when writers I like make allusions to songs I’ve never heard. It is, in fact, how I learned about Nina Simone when I was 15, so there’s that. Always exceptions.
Situations
Things rarely happen in the ether. Normally, things require situations. And though some of us might lead lives that beg them to occur, sometimes what happens is the product of a situation, and not begging. Situations. Not necessarily ones that one would choose, but that were still compelling enough to choose to live by. Especially if life was the predominate choice. It all depends upon your situation. And there are lots of situations.