Category: Short Stories (Page 39 of 46)

The End

December 2, 2012 / Tom

He had stood there before her naked many times. He had shed tears of joy and doubt, and had stripped himself down to the bone often in the need to get closer to her. In ecstasy he wanted to not only be inside her but exist inside her. He could feel her throughout his existence, in every breath and every whimper of his heart as time and space devoured them whole.

Now, as had often been the case, he stood guarded against her. She had asked him to believe too much, and he just couldn’t believe the essence of her stories. He had often tried to wipe the dust of her stories off of him, but they smeared against his sweaty skin leaving trails of mud in their wake as his mind sought to find some semblance of cleanliness. Soon, he was lying to himself, making the mud clean and the chaffing of the sand against his skin a beautiful experience. In the end, as the chaffing turned to bloody, open sores that the mud infected he could do nothing but fall to his knees, rip out his heart, and throw it into the River she had suggested was her.

It was then he discovered that greatest lie of all. She did not love him truly. No, love does not see a naked warrior struggling and let him die. Love does not lie to him, pretending to be here when there. Love does not seek approval in the minds of others. Love does not hide itself from any part of any world known or unknown. Instead, love knows itself, and it knows its home. It comforts, it provides security, and it renews life within the tired beasts who strive to know it.

In the final act of the tragic play that had taken its toll on his mind, body and soul, the lies had simply become too much for him to bear. The mud no longer smeared upon his skin. Instead, it caked on him, making it impossible to breathe. Her ultimatums had worn him to a faint shell of himself, and her threats had turned him against even himself. He was beginning to feel weak, pathetic, and defeated even in the face of the great light they shared. He no longer looked like himself, and he no longer felt like the proud warrior he was when they had first gazed into each other’s eyes.

She had once given him a light and taken his breath with the sight of her. Now, she was blinding him with his own tears and choking him with his own hand. He had a feeling that she had been down this road many times before, but he had not, and he had no desire to travel with her toward the graveyard she deposited the bodies of those who dared walk with her too long. No, he would end the journey before his own demise, and he would no longer pretend the mud felt like gold and the open sores felt like freedom.

Once he stopped blaming himself for the fear she offered him he began to see the truth. The many untruths, the many stories, the unusual demands and requirements, and the box she built for them was way too much to bear. She had suggested that their box was special, but he knew better. Their box was designed to keep them from being special. It was there to protect her from the inevitable failure she knew she would create. It was there to appease some childish notion of ownership of others, and to deny the “special” relationship she said she was creating from the very breath it needed to survive. He had tried to live in that box, but freedom was his goal in this life and as he struggled to inhale under the weight of walls and lies he could not bear the confinement. He moved on in no uncertain terms.

His love would be one that lifted him up, not held him down. It would display him with pride, not hide him in some idea of security. It would include him, not lie to him in order to exclude who he was and what he would do. He would give his life to and for his lover, and in return he simply asked for the complete openness, honesty and consideration that he would so readily extend.

He had learned much in his life. He now valued honesty, respect and openness above all. They were gone from her some time before their last breath together, and it just took him time to see it, understand it, and move beyond the torturous thoughts that leaving her created. It took a great sense of courage to finally end it, but as he sat alone in his dark room and cried tears of great anguish he know that he had done all he could and simply had nothing left but those tears to give.

At the end the final bell had been struck, and he walked away battered, bruised and bloodied but with a sense of success that exposed an inner truth. He had given her his all, and though the lies and fear in her had proved fatal, he was returning to himself and to the truth he had learned was all that mattered. He loved her deeply, and with a passion he doubted would ever exist again. That was the truth, his truth, and although he could not move beyond the pain of deceit he would hold his head up high knowing that he had fought without fail and nearly died in the attempt to honor that truth. In the end he could not have lost, for he had discovered within him something he never thought existed, the capacity to love without fail, trust without fear, and know the beauty of living for someone other than himself.

He was far from perfect, but he tried to overcome his imperfections for the love he had discovered. He worked hard on her behalf, and that in itself had proven a victory. He could now know that with a woman who could love him equally well he would never need struggle again. That, however, is for a different story yet to be written.

The End.

Protected: …. (LOVE)

November 29, 2012 / Tom

A Sit Moment

November 11, 2012 / Tom

◊

Ever just sit? You know, those kind of sits where you forget you exist, what time it is, and what place you are at? Everything just blends into everything else, and suddenly everything becomes nothing. There is no feeling in you and all thought is gone. You exist but you don’t, you feel but you can’t.

Sometimes I welcome those moments. They help me escape and understand. I believe this is what my soul must feel when not in a body and mind. No thought. No feeling. No existence. It’s why our souls become human. They want to feel something, they want to experience. So they make the choice to go from that nothing to this something. We are born.

There is a certain melancholy to being human often interrupted by moments of pure happiness. To those enlightened masters who suggest otherwise, I’d ask them to explain to me what gave them their perspective. Each and every master who has ever preached the virtues of happiness does so from the perspective of suffering. Each and every understanding of enlightenment is born from the deepest parts of suffering. Transformation itself is suffering. We are born to suffer so that we can know something else.

Our first acts of existence outside the womb are to suffer. We are made to cry just to get us to breathe, that sudden slap on the ass announcing our arrival to this world. We know hunger for the first time, and we begin to know human needs. If we are lucky, we are born to a nurturer, someone who gives us her breast in our moments of need; someone who tenderly caresses our humanity in our moments of utter confusion. I often wonder if these needs and wants come as a dramatic relief to a soul who had just awoken from their own sit moment.

My most recent slap in the ass comes at the hand of a man walking by my car. I had forgotten about this traffic and the time I had spent in this same exact spot. I had forgotten about the frustration of sitting still in traffic on a Friday afternoon. It was welcome relief spoiled by this man just casually strolling down the sidewalk enjoying his walk. He had a smile that betrayed a joy, and his walk suggested that he had found some happiness in this moment. I could only wonder why.

What expectation was met that brought him here? Maybe he received an unexpected message from his lover. What did that message say? My mind conjured up the possibilities. “I just wanted to say I love you.” “You mean the world to me.” “Get home, I’m naked and waiting.” “I want you beyond measure.” I could feel a smile cross my lips at the thought.

Maybe he was just leaving from his lover’s house. The kiss goodbye and the promise of seeing her again had him smiling. The feeling of being loved and of loving when the gift and the giver unite to form one singularity of purpose can create such joy in the human heart. Maybe his expression was evidence of that joy. He mattered to her, and she wanted him. She gave his love right back to him, and it made him fly. She had made him feel superhuman, or rather exposed to him that part that was superhuman. He could still feel her there, and as a result couldn’t stop smiling.

I’m not unhappy alone, but I know that joy that rushes into me when made to feel like I exist outside of myself. That I matter. That I’m wanted. I don’t want to get all metaphysical here. Time is short and I simply want to experience. I don’t care what part of me is feeling that joy, or why. I don’t care what is happening. I’m like a hungry bear who has just found a jar of peanut butter. I just want to eat it, feel my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, feel the need for water to wash it all down. I’m tired of demonizing the experience itself for some notion of freedom that doesn’t truly exist in this realm. We are all prisoners of expectation, of need, of desire and of ego. Even those who preach the virtues of not having expectations suffer from having them. That very idea is an expectation. Even those who preach the about non-attachment seem to have an attachment to the idea. We are, after all, spirits having a human experience and not the other way around.

Maybe he is happy because he isn’t sitting in this infernal traffic. He can walk freely, without encumbrance, while I sit in this mostly plastic box going nowhere. To those who say a car is freedom, welcome to my world where I often sit imprisoned in a coiled line of vehicles all going nowhere quickly. Yes, if I was walking seeing this mess and the frustrated people in it I guess I would be happy too. Yes, Mr. Happy Man, smile away. Gas is $4 a gallon and I’m burning it just sitting here while you are burning calories rubbing my nose in my own insanity. Ok, I rubbing my own nose in it (I can almost hear your response).

Of course it could be nothing. Maybe he is smiling because he doesn’t have a lover. Maybe he is smiling because he doesn’t need a car. Maybe he is smiling just because he is here, or there, in that place he is supposed to be. He is something superhuman himself in not having those needs the rest of us seem to have. Maybe his life is just one long sit moment and that smile evidence of all of this everything I see being nothing he sees. We aren’t just literally in two different places, we are figuratively there as well.

So, Mr. Buddha Lao Tzu, you have found the key to not experiencing the experience. You think you are in the game because you are watching it. You watch players like me spill our blood and guts on the field and then take credit for the victory simply because you observed the sport. You play it safe in the bleachers. Your clothes stay clean while ours get muddy. I get it. I’m just not sure I could ever want to be there. Even through the suffering and the joys, the fights and the ecstasy I’m not sure I’d replace the experience with the observation of it. I may get next to you on the bleachers one day, but I will do so as a retired player of the game. You, my friend, are always welcome to come down to the field and join those of us playing.

Of course you could be retired having learned the game from the inside. If that is the case, good play, my friend, good play. Maybe you haven’t read the book, maybe you wrote it. Maybe you are me in some possible future. Maybe I’m seeing a future me strolling down the street to my empty apartment without a care in the world. The possibility itself seems so far away. I guess that is why they call it the future.

I look away to see the cars ahead of me moving again. I’m heading home, whatever that means.

(#6

Setting: sitting in your car in a line of traffic on a suburban street

Subject: man walking down the street with a smile on his face (one of those closed-lip, contented ones))

Exit the Numbness

November 9, 2012 / Tom

I sit and I stare blindly at the wall. There is nothing there, it’s just a wall. Beyond it, there is something, but I can’t see it. All I can see is a white, flat and bland wall.

I hate that fucking wall. I’m not sure why, but I do. I should love it. Right now, it is the only thing paying any attention to me. But I hate it. I fucking hate that wall.

I’m sick of fighting just to be me. I’m sick of feeling like me isn’t good enough for anything. I’m sick of dying a little each minute of each day. I just want to be loved for who I am. Am I that bad that I don’t deserve it? Do the more human parts of me mean more to the world than those parts that are beautiful? Why is it that my humanity shines brighter than my Divinity? Why is that all you can see? What am I doing wrong here?

Why can’t you see me? Why is it all so much more important to you? We love those who leave this place, who finally find freedom from all of this bullshit. They become important as they lie in a box. They become good enough then. Suddenly, even if it is for a brief moment, they matter. The shell of form lies there feeling nothing while those who suddenly love it, miss it, want it and cry for it feel what they should have felt all along. It’s all momentary, they will forget the dead quickly just as they forgot the living. That rotting body will once again become anonymous to all except the things that eat away at it. It’s a tragic irony; in his demise the man can become a slave to the things that eat away at him just as when he walked the Earth.

I love so much, but can’t seem to show it in a way that is good enough. I cry real tears that seem to evaporate before they hit the ground. I can’t get it right. All I can do is pretend that I am. I relive the countless memories of not being good enough, of failing, of hating myself for just being me. Love me motherfucker, please, because I love you. I do. I want to. I want to hold you. I want to you to laugh and dance and love. I want you to hold me. I want you to press on those spots that hurt so they can heal. I want to feel my head finally release into your hands and know that those hands will catch me.

I don’t want this. I don’t want everything else to matter but me. I want to heal this and move on. I want to be part of the swirl of activity in your morning. I don’t want those truths I send to you to be ignored while everything else becomes important. I want to matter, to know that I am in your thoughts and your heart and to feel it because I hate this wall. It’s cold. It’s bland. It makes me feel lonely.

I make my own bed. I have to lie in it. Why do I do these things? Why can’t I hear anything? Why am I deaf to the song I want to hear so loudly in my heart? Why is despair the only thing I can feel? Fuck. At least I can feel something. It’s the numbness I fear more than anything. When that comes I just don’t know what to do. Some call that “moodiness”. It’s truly numbness. I can’t feel anything in those moments. I just want to leave. I don’t want to be here anymore.

I run from the numbness. I hide from it. Because I fear it. Right now the tightness in my gut and the sadness in my heart are much better than the numbness. Feeling something is always better than feeling nothing at all. At least I know I am still alive. I do, in those moments, often hope the only feeling that will return is the way I feel when I am next to you. It never does because I’m not good enough to have that feeling be real in your absence. I question my Soul for wanting to have this experience. I question myself for allowing it. I question living because it doesn’t really feel alive at all.

I’m done hurting. I need to be the real me, the me that loves beyond question and trusts beyond limits. I need to stop hearing this shit in my head and knowing that how I feel when you are sitting next to me is the real feeling my Soul wants to know. I’ve felt the sadness and ran from the numbness for far too long. It needs to end.

In this year where nothing is the same now then when it started, I am at my most important crossroads. Here is where I live or die, where I walk into the light or succumb to the numbness. What do I want here? What do I truly want? Do I want to be a slave to a past I don’t truly understand or know? Do I want to be like every star in the sky and shine for the world to see? Each and every step I have taken in this fucking experience has led me to this cliff. I have to jump, there is no choice. Turning back is not an option as the dogs circle and the prepare to attack. No, I have to jump, so now as I leap from it I must decide either to plummet to the Earth or to fly. Yes, I know the choice is mine.

My legs are shaking and my fingers can barely get the words out of me fast enough. Now is the time. Right now.

The Black Wall

November 7, 2012 / Tom

This was a vivid dream as real as any waking moment he had ever experienced. He walked alone a field so dark there was no form, and with each step a fear that there would be nothing which would hold him steady until the next foot fell. In the darkness he wondered, and there in the space within space he found himself questioning everything.

Off in the distance something shined like a star contrasting brightly against the emptiness. He approached warily, unsure not only of what it was but also unsure of the safety of the journey to it. In this darkness there was no security, only insecurity, and in this walk toward the light there was no guarantee that his feet would fall on steady ground. He couldn’t even see his feet, or the rest of him, let alone the ground that lie ahead. He just knew he couldn’t sit still, that he needed to move forward toward the star lit against the abyss. He wanted – he needed – to get to that spot where the light would show him all there was to see.

Slowly, almost painfully, he neared the light. He could now make out the form of a wall. It was a dark, black brick wall highlighted by a brilliant white mortar which reflected the light brightly. He could not see the source of the light, or the size of the wall but as he looked away the light only make the blackness surrounding him darker and more ominous. Somehow the wall itself made him feel both lonely and loved, as if somehow now he had found a purpose in the loneliness he had always felt and the hope that soon it would all end. So he pressed onward, painfully afraid of each step while joyfully hopeful in the journey.

The brightly-lit wall appeared to move toward him as he got closer as if it somehow sensed the fear he had in each step. It seemed to want to end his suffering although he thought it couldn’t possibly relate to such emotion. The wall could be nothing other than a wall, it had no ability to know him or his condition. It was just there, lit, tall, strong and unable to feel.

Soon he had to stop walking as the light began to hurt his eyes. It seemed to be harder to see in such bright, beautiful light than it was in the darkness. He had become so accustomed to the darkness that the light actually hurt him. He looked away, searching for comfort in the darkness while still desperately wanting to see the light. It was a slow, painful process, but soon he could look into the light without reaction. Then he could see a message written boldly in white scrawled across the wall. It wasn’t long from then that the message was clear.

“You may not live to see the end of this.”

He stood, frozen. The fear created within a lifetime came flooding to his face as his eyes began to let go a torrent of pent-up suffering. He dropped to his knees and sobbed. Yes, the end was near, and there was no certainty that he would live to see it.

As he sobbed uncontrollably he noticed through his blurred eyes the field in which he had walked. There were such beautiful flowers that extended as far as the eyes could see. Yes, he could see! Butterflies fluttered around him, some landing on his shoulders, others on his arms, still others on his head. They seemed to caress his soul, telling him “it will be all right, you are loved.” He looked out across the horizon not believing he had never seen any of this. The darkness wasn’t the only truth, there had always been this field, these flowers, the butterflies and the beauty that reached as far as the eyes could see. He had simply closed his eyes to it all, and when the smallest crack in his own blindness presented itself he found a light that lit the world. The journey hadn’t been a simple walk at all; it was his eyes being opened to the truth.

He turned to the wall that had given him hope and had inspired him toward his present moment. The light that had once lit it now lit everywhere. As he wiped his eyes and stood he read the message scrawled on it one final time. It had changed, and with a sigh and a swallow he read what it now said aloud.

“This is the end of it.”

He half-cried half-laughed at the revelation as a lone butterfly landed on his chest right where he now felt his heart beat loudly. He looked at her as she him and both seemed to know.

Love.

♥

When I See You Smile

November 1, 2012 / Tom

Do you know the beauty exposed to the world when you smile?

I know you do. You have to. There’s no way that kind of bomb goes off and you can’t feel it.

For me the shock wave is magnificent. It bowls me over, knocks me to me knees and then lifts me up again. Yeah, I feel it.

It may take somewhere around 26 muscles for you to smile, but it really only takes one for me to feel. That muscle beats loudly in my chest at the very thought of you, a testament to the power of a connection formed not today, not yesterday, but perhaps a million lifetimes ago in an entirely different place. Whenever it was formed, it lives strongly in that smile and in my heart’s response. Those things are the Soul we share reminding us of who we are and where we’ve been. We may not remember the details, but to that Soul those details are meaningless if the face of the bound itself.

I bet you have bowled me over, knocked me to my knees and lifted me up again an infinite number of times since we’ve known on another. I may only remember a relatively few of them and only the most recent, but I have a strong suspicion that I’ve fallen over and over again for the simple pleasure of seeing you smile. Maybe I’m remembering. Maybe I’ve never forgotten. Maybe you were always there.

I guess it doesn’t matter. What matters is you are coming, and I will again be knocked to my knees and picked up again. Yeah, I smile at the very thought…

And Now We Stand

October 26, 2012 / Tom

“A man must learn to kneel before he can learn to rise.”

I have knelt, and tasted bitterness from the puddles at my feet. Now, I rise, and drink from the golden chalice blessed upon the altar of love. Drink with me, Lover, and know the taste born in all eternity. Sip from the cup that offers so much promise and you will know our truth, and the two of us will become drunk in the throes of very thing that gave us life.

Rise with me and gaze upon the horizon. See tomorrow through the eyes of love, and taste this moment in that sweet fruit we both crave. I kiss the slight trickle of juice as it escapes your lips, tasting what you taste, knowing what you know. We then look into each other’s eyes, and without words the oath of a million lifetimes is once again spoken. Fall into my waiting arms as I fall into yours, and together let’s stand tall in this, our space, our place of Heaven.

From that moment we met we knew. In the mind we fought, in the slavery of ideas we tossed and turned in the roughest of seas. Now, from this moment we stand, I vow that I shall make love to you forever, each moment a testament to the eternal spring within us. Our minds will challenge us, our bodies will defy us, and our voices will call out to empty shadows in darkened rooms. Yet we, that magical bond between you and me, will not waver again. Our hearts bound to remember this moment even as it passes, our Souls taking the lead even when the voices shout their loudest.

We stand. Together. We lean on each other. Our true selves are known nowhere else but here, in this place where two Souls found each other, love each other, and speak a truth no one else can hear. We comfort one another, and stand in the shadows together. We face our monsters in the dark alone no longer and defeat them all we shall, arm-in-arm, together.

You were there when I had fallen into the mud. You were there as I tasted the stench of the puddles that stung at the wounds in my flesh. You were there as I rose, as I stumbled, as I rose again. Now, you are here as I stand tall, healing quickly, ready to move beyond this field into the life we were destined to have. Ready to dance, ready to love, ready to share this enormous gift. Ready to give it all to you.

I don’t pretend to know it all. I know Now, this moment, and the truth of it. That truth courses through my veins. You course through my veins, into my heart, out through my breath and back into the best part of me all over again. Yes, it is beautiful, and I know it for all of its magnificence.

My testament of gratitude is simple, yet Divine. To be true to the incredible lightness of Love that I now float upon. Like the River I now find myself surrendered to, it carries me to places I’ve never seen and never known. When I’m afraid, I will reach for you my Lover, and you will remind me of the safety of this place. When I fight, you will remind me that it is me that I am fighting, but you I am fighting for. When I shout, you will put your finger to my lips and kiss my face gently reminding me that it’s a ghost I’m chasing. This I know, and this I will do for you.

So thank you, and take me for all I am and all I will ever be.

♥

:( And I want to growl {MATURE}

October 24, 2012 / Tom

This can’t be about me. It can’t be anything about me. But it is. I can’t help it. I’m the artist; I’m the painter, the sculptor, the magician. I can’t release this unless I make it about me.

I look around at the shambles that is my apartment. I haven’t cleaned in far too long. There’s that last load of laundry waiting to be folded, the unmade bed, the stuff that needs to be put away. I’ve gotta buckle down and get this shit cleaned. I chuckle disgustingly at the metaphor. This place is a lot like my life. Disheveled, unkempt, chaotic.

I’m lost most of the time. I switch between the loving Being that I used to know before and the cold, angry slob that I believe saved me from so much bullshit. I don’t know who I am or what the fuck I’m doing here. I have this one light I see in the wilderness of mess swirling around me and most of the time I fuck with that to the point it nearly goes out. My kids love me beyond reason, even though most of the time I can’t figure out why besides the fact they were born to me. They are untouchable to me, but even as I play the role of good dad I don’t feel like I am anything close. I lose my patience, I judge. I demand and I tell them how I would do it. Christ, I even know that is my fucking ego talking. I give my kids the best of me. I let them do things, make choices, and figure stuff out on their own. They love me because I love them, unconditionally and without question. I want them to grow, be strong, and be able to leave me someday without fear and without the self-doubt that has plagued me my entire life.

So, why do I think I am bad? Fuck if I know. Probably because that is what I was taught, and it is a painful experience to leave behind. You’d think I’d want to run from it as fast as I could, but when that thought has been a guiding force in your life you learn to use it and make it work. Soon, you forget how to make anything else work.

Fuck it. I’m pissed at me. I know better. I’ve seen better. I’ve done better. I am better. I just fucking want to growl.

Then there is her, that anonymous moniker I give to the woman I love. That light in the wilderness I keep trying to find ways to extinguish. That wonderful bundle of energy that I simply can’t seem to live without. Yeah, her. She’s real and a dream, and she gives my heart a reason to sing while showing me she is not the cause. I wait for her…I want her…I love her.

I can’t be all bad, because she loves me too. We’ve sailed some rough seas, as two passionate and independent people try to mix their luggage and lives into some semblance of a puzzle that fits together. This isn’t as easy as it sounds given our situations, but we try. I often lose sight of her in the shit-hole of my mind as the dark forest closes in and I block out the light. Yet, she’s still there, trying hard to shine and guide me while I kick and scream and pretend not to see her. Sometimes I think I am just a fucking moron, giving up those parts of me that sing for those parts of me that bite, gnaw and then shit out their dinner.

I’ll debate for about an hour on whether or not I should post this. I don’t want a pity party or a compliment debate. I simply want to vent, tell this truth as I see it, and get it the fuck out of me before it eats me away from the inside out. I don’t want to hear a thing from anyone, I simply want to vomit, purge and leave the good stuff that’s left to its own devices. Please, allow me that dignity even if I don’t often feel I deserve it.

See, I am not broken. Actually, I fixed. Fixed to the point that I know what’s broken. Aware to the darkness because of one bright light that refuses to fade. To what I owe this light I will never be able to know, or describe, or repay. What I do know in this moment is that I need to stop being a whiny baby and start being her man, a man she can be proud of and a man that she can look to with respect, honor and a raging lust to which I will gladly succumb.

So this canvas I’ve just painted is the continuance of a love story that began with a simple statement of a simple truth that led two people into each other’s arms. It’s the journey of truth that took the deep fires of passion into a cold desert to melt the icicles that had formed around my heart. These last two weeks have been torturous hell for two people who love each other deeply but walked away in order to get here. I nearly lost the fire for good, and in my attempts to numb the pain I nearly lost the light as well. I’m not strong enough to leave love behind, and I’m not strong enough to cast aside the feeling that I get when she’s in my arms, kissing me, talking to me, guiding me. I’m not strong enough to let this go, and I’m not strong enough to move on.

I take that back. Of course I’m strong enough. I’m strong enough to stay right where I belong. I’m strong enough to hold onto the feeling I get when she’s in my arms even during the long moments apart. I’m strong enough to grasp this bolt of lightning and never let it go. I’m strong enough to say I’m sorry when I am, and strong enough to look at myself in the mirror and know what I want to do. I’m also strong enough to do it.

I truly have no clue what I am doing right now. I just know I need to do it. I want to growl but for a different reason. She knows what I mean. All lovers know what I mean. I tell you what. If you are lucky enough to have your love near you, go make love to her. Take her in your arms and kiss her passionately. Rub her, touch her, make her tingle. Kiss her everywhere, and don’t stop until she begs you to. Then make love to her like you mean it, like she deserves it, and like God Herself tells you to. Don’t stop until you can’t breathe and can’t move another muscle. Then, fall together into that clichéd heap on the bed and don’t move until the Sun reminds you that you can do it all over again. Then do it. Don’t stop…ever.

Make love to her with your eyes, with your hands, with every word that you whisper into her Soul. I know that hard part is remembering, but try. Give it every bit of energy you’d normally put into proving you are the man. I promise you, you aren’t “the man” without her. She completes you. She makes the world revolve and the Sun rise. You’re just a lost boy in the dark woods looking for a light to guide you home. She will if you let her, if she is your Lover, so just fucking put down the script and improvise a wonderful life with her.

I had better remember that if I am blessed with that chance. I will kick my own ass if I don’t.

The Gift of You (The Beach and the Ocean)

October 19, 2012 / Tom

“Touch me there, my love, and discover a truth worth finding” ~Tom Grasso

Sometimes he was like an island beach, and she was like an enormous ocean. He would hold on to his fears and she to hers. She’d be consumed by her identity of independence, of power, of depth and he his identity of pain, experience and a fascination with the destiny that left him here, as this island, longing for the sea. Both were so consumed by who they were that they failed to realize what happened when they touched at that place we call the “shoreline.” There, the ocean and the beach become one, and it is there that the greatest magic in the Universe turns water into a bit of sand and sand into a bit of water.

There is not much magic being the beach or the ocean. All it takes is an illusion and a desire to put that illusion above all others. Yes, we often put the illusion of who we are above the reality of who we are. We so identify with our waves, with our dunes, with our depth and with our coarseness that we neglect the wonderful experience occurring where the two meet. We are so dependent on the dream that we often tell ourselves that we love the dream and in the process destroy a dream far greater. We even suggest that there is nothing else as important to our existence as our identities and that we are done experiencing this existence beyond the boundaries we have created for ourselves.

There are times when I am so in love with being the beach or the ocean that I can not truly experience the shoreline. I will be so attached to the hot sand or the water’s depth that I will never fully know the experience of the place were the depths cool the sands, and the sands warm the water. If I hold fast to this notion, I will never see how much I love the ocean, or the beach, and I will never fully get to know that beauty that I AM.

We forget that many times the real strength, power and depth aren’t just found in the illusions of who we are, but in the ability to allow ourselves to enjoy the shoreline outside the box of who we think we are. It takes real courage and strength to give ourselves to another, to become the Lover, when we have created the idea of strength in only ourselves. It’s easy to pretend to have strength in separation when we find comfort there. It’s comforting to dream about truth in the separateness of I from you, of him from her, of me from us when that is what we have created. It takes no real courage to stand on your own two feet and stare the Universe in the eye when that is who you think you are. The real courage comes from stepping off the sand into the mud, of rising out of the depths into the that place that is neither water nor sand but a bit of both. We step out of our box into the wet sand and often feel fear we want to run from. It gives us great comfort to hide in our secure box and somehow suggest that it takes remarkable strength to be there.

We are free to experience this existence in the way we want. Free will, the beauty and the bane of the human experience, is the sole mechanism by which we convert our ideas and thoughts into a tangible reality. We can lie to ourselves that we have no shame there even as we put the proverbial fig leaf on our most private of areas and hide ourselves from one another. We are free to profess our strength and our power and our independence even as we display none of it. We cater to fear, some of which shows itself as unreasonable anger and some of which shows itself as unbending inconsideration. Other times that fear is demonstrated as pain, the sand suffering in not meeting the water, and the ocean suffering in not meeting the sand. So we attach ourselves to what we know…pain, fear, or some other false sense of security. We all seem to relive our chosen stories when we simply fear walking from the beach to test the waters where the waves kiss our sandy feet.

A chosen few seem to find great pleasure at the shoreline. They take a great risk in giving themselves to their Lover, but with that risk often comes great reward. There is Heaven in that place where Lovers meet, a certain paradise fraught with undertows, riptides and strong currents. Heaven can certainly become hell from time to time, but to those who brave their minds and their fears to walk in the surf ecstasy is the answer to the challenges of their humanity. Because they speak a language only their Lover can understand, those souls indulge their fears and find solace in one another. They learn to not only give to each other, but to take from each other. They can still be who they are as individuals, but they also find that the line where they meet one another is a place where they find a source of great strength both inside and outside of themselves. See, the shoreline doesn’t just exist where two souls meet, it is also the place inside ourselves were our fears meet our love, where our minds, hearts and souls all mesh into an undeniable passion for another person.

That passion is beautiful. That love is Divine. That expression of human fear creates such a wonderful manifestation of human potential in love. Take a chance if you will. Express it freely if you can. Give in to it if you are able. Even while we are fine in being alone and even as we love who we are, there is a certain wonderfulness in offering yourself completely to another being who is doing the same. Trust is the result. Faith is the byproduct. You are a gift, and it would be such a shame not to offer that gift to someone who would do the same for you and to someone who breathes you in with each breath, and who lives to be by your side.

Live this truth and find a foothold in the ocean tide where fear can’t last for long and faith abounds in the gift of love, companionship and of who you are.

The Short Story of a Simple Truth

October 18, 2012 / Tom

He just knew.

If anyone asked him why he was in love with her, he simply replied “I just am.” If someone asked him how he was able to deal with the distance between them he would reply, “I just do.” When his friends wondered how he could deal with the weeks between seeing her he simply shrugged and said, “I just can.”

His replies had become simple over the years. When they began he would describe elaborately to all who would listen how much he loved this woman. He’d demonstrate his loyalty for all who would watch, and he would get into long discussions describing his love for her when he was challenged. There was no doubt in anyone he knew that he loved her, and that he was her man, and he liked it that way.

He had mellowed over the years. Soon the distance between them would close, and the time between visits would be nil. They had been committed to each other for a number of years now, and the years had converted what were rough seas into calm waters. She had healed him and, in some respects, they had healed each other. Now this man and this woman walked together in ways many would never know, many times simply to be with each other in a moment that would become eternity.

His once elaborate protestations of love were his truth. He had never known such passion for another human being. He felt something when he saw her. He knew all he need to know when he was with her. He needed nothing when in her arms and asked for nothing in their moments of passion. He felt her in every breath and saw her in the beauty all around him. In their moments apart, he could feel her hold him in the pink-hued clouds of a summer sunset. He could hear her whisper to him in the sounds of a running stream. He would smile at the thought of seeing this or that with her, and would vow to bring her to these places in their moments together. He wanted her to see his world and to know him through these things. Once she was there with him he could revisit these places in her absence and remember.

Once he feared. He feared her and in giving himself to her. He fought her, and she fought him right back. He tested her, and she refused to accept the test. She was not them, she was beautiful and smart and everything he needed. The nightmares and demon-voices would warn him and he would react, and she would fight him hard. He hated those voices, and he hated the terrors they brought to him. He knew the truth, and he wanted to believe.

Then he resolved to embrace the truth and own it. He stood firm and fought back against the onslaught of fear and insecurity. This time instead of fighting him, she was fighting next to him, like a warrior princess alongside her prince standing with their backs against the wall ready to win or die trying. It was in this battle that they found each other, and where that unbreakable bond of trust and love was made whole. He learned he could trust and have faith in her without question and she learned of his incredible strength and resolve in love despite facing the haunting face of his own demons.

When the dust settled they were standing there, hand in hand with their lips embracing each other tenderly. There they found freedom, and there she taught him more than he had ever learned. He proved to her the depth of his love for her, and for her that meant the world. He would never steal from her who she was but would instead stand guard and protect her without question. He would not control her, he would fiercely protect her independence. He would never need ask her for a thing, for she would freely give of herself to the man she loved without worry and without question. The Yin and the Yang met there, where they stood, and that was enough for the Universe to sing loudly.

From then on, when someone asked him why he was in love with her, he would simply reply “I just am.” When someone asked him how he dealt with the distance between them, he simply replied “I just do.” When someone asked him how could deal with the weeks that spanned between their moments together he simply replied, “I just can.” They were simple answers, particularly for this man so known for his elaborate responses.

Yet they were elaborate to him. They were very detailed in describing the indescribable. They described the gratitude he had for the gift that was her. They described the salvation he found in a woman so strong that she not only fought him but fought for him. Those simple replies encompassed an eternity of emotion and a never-ending spring of love within him. He couldn’t describe any of this to them, and he felt no need to anymore. Instead, he would hold his tongue and find her. There he would hold her, kiss her, touch her and make love to her in a way that fully described how he felt. Their eyes would speak a language no one else spoke, and their bodies would dance to a song no one else heard. It did not matter to them here in that place where they stood, where they laid, where they danced together in unending ecstasy. They had found each other and they were present in the moment they had created. All else had ceased to exist.

In their lives they had found a short story of a simple truth. Their entirety, their Universe, and the enormity of who they were could be found in three simple words they never failed to speak to each other. “I love you.” Those words righted a world that had once gone mad. Those words solidified a truth that spanned a million moments. Those words rang true for the eternity they described and the Universe they created. They lived it, they breathed it, and it became everything.

♥