A recluse in heaven (Rishikesh)

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She had a smile that was like the crème on top of a coffee, sweet as two sugars. If it wasn’t for the wisdom of the hills, the stories of the river, the vibration in the sand that everything too heavy falls into, if it wasn’t for the pain of the past, the hot stove, the scars that have cured to make something new, something interesting, if it wasn’t for the crumble of the boy who once owned these thumbs, she would be irresistible. Yet, if we shared a thousand love stories, they’d all end the same way. Her lips are poison and I die a happy fool. Instead death is an illusion, so you just have to endure the breaking away of whatever you thought was real, whatever kept you from the realisation that this is all nothing.

If everything is nothing, if nothing is real, then this is all real. Yet, that pain of clinging on to a storyline constructed, a rock in the rapports. I let go long ago, and I still see rocks that remind me of you, but more so, all that pain I caused by trying to hold on. With acceptance comes sadness, but only the acceptance lasts, the emotions just dissipate. Unlike the self-proclaimed self-help gurus at every turn in our existence, the ones who just want to talk about themselves and hide it in a way to present it as virtue. They will have you dissecting every emotion. Down to the last ounce of trauma. Blame your parents mostly. The uncle that got drunk and showed you darkness before you knew it’s necessity, the elderly women who breathed in your masculinity like a witch above her boiling cauldron. Yeah, it’s all in the past, and you forgot what actually happened, so you recollected scenes to make sense of it, and now your whole life is full of pain and you’re such a victim. Poor you, poor little baby. You don’t need to stand tall, if anyone else had dealt with what you have, then they’d really know your pain. But you, just like every other, are experiencing this the exact same way as everyone. Left with the free will our creator, consciously or not allowed us to have. You can be bitter or better, look to the past or the future, or you can do what I suggest, what I am giving a go, and that’s just do whatever the fuck you want with as much honesty as your level of awareness allows. Lose the shame to your addictions and you might just lose the addiction, you might just see things for as they are when you take the romance out of it. I’m a fool, for many reasons but one a little more recent. I’m a Methodist. So insecure in my own ability I need to live a lifestyle of a writer to be one. What happens when even after self-torture and spiritual mutilation you cannot pen together something you’re proud of. You need confidence to write. However it’s attained. Be it 4 long necks of beer, or a cold plunge in the Ganges after a 20-minute meditation on the sand. This religion I’ve chosen, art; it doesn’t hold a place for worship, you cannot worship an identity that is a character that writes, then sit and watch on as he tries to write. Write what?

So when I close my eyes to be better, or worse, realising duality is red and blue. The mixtures of light and dark just create different colours. I don’t listen to the voice in my head, the senses in my body and give everyone a break from the spoilt child trying to make sense. So I can’t write, I can’t love, I can’t look forward and I can’t look back, I can’t feel and I can’t think, I’m a mollusc. So I drink this macchiato now. The one that came with a biscuit. The river flows just the same, maybe quicker or slower than yesterday, the same sun that Pluto orbits hums a modest 31 degrees and this deaf, dumb and retarded mollusc is just going to do nothing. I’ve been hypnotised, like a gambler or a smoker who went to the depths of the sub conscious to flick a switch to find what you once could not live without, you now find repulsive. That smile, that crème, is like a child popping balloons in the war veteran’s favourite restaurant. Shoulder blades jumping with every bang. An innocent action summoning death. A joyful jeer luring in a sacred deer that is nothing but a rotten corpse and the smell of the flesh is a testimony to what you left behind.

Rishikesh is heaven, a stoners playground. Allows the soul to lose its coyness. Creates a separation from oneself that allows the calmness to observe the observer. I awake when I want and before going on the ever-alluring phone that zaps time and thoughts like a mike Tyson uppercut, I walk bare foot to the beach. The walk is no longer than a kilometre, maybe a mile to and fro. I sit on that soft sand and for 20 minutes let those heavy clusters of atoms sitting in my upper back fall into the vibrating earth. Then I plunge in the cold waters of the Ganga seven times. Splash the fresh water streaming from the top of the Himalayas and walk back to the Yoga villa I stay in. I sit in the common area and order a black coffee. The coffees come hotter than you can imagine any liquid being able to attain. I sit there alongside a cluster of shapes, sizes, genders, ages and nationalities around me. All with their own story which with enough questioning would boil down to something interesting. That morning routine, that mature decision changes the course of the whole day, like adjusting a stance before a golf swing. Gets the screen time down an hour or two and you're still doing what you want, just what you want is a little better for the psyche. It’s impossible to be full of grievances in this town. The mountains look over the colourful building as if they’re a protective older brother. The river runs with a blue. There is no alcohol, except for two cafes, which I have visited already. Both 5km walk away and on the other side of the river. The foot bridge connecting the two main ports is closed. They are building a new one. When I walk past the construction there is 3 or 4 blokes in thongs looking at it, trying to figure out where to start. The monkeys walk over the closed bridge, which I find hilarious. All restaurants are vegetarian and without the devil’s elixir swallowed you do feel an underlying sincerity with each interaction. I sit on the top of KRISHNA CAFÉ. The flies are my only company and they come in abundance. I buy hash from the man who runs it. He walks up, hands me a handful. I sit at this table alone, learning to love the burn of my fingers as I crumble the hash from the flame and crush it to mix with tobacco. Load up the pipe and look over the river as if I know something, whilst puffing wisdom that’s sure to come.

I can figure just about anything out when sitting and watching. Filling the silence with stories of the strangers that move around me. Only takes two minutes to work out which Cafés are selling hash or not. I could see who was banging all these hot spiritually deprived yoga students. The ones who can walk around wearing loose orange clothes as if he is morally superior. Young lady flies from Melbourne alone to pursue her spiritual journey, clinging to an identity formed in an attempt to destroy one. First session they speak, second session they fuck. He is a real dog too, tantric sex, a show off, not shy and they follow suit. Not only the first one to fuck her properly, he’s the first stranger to be able to do it sober. Young girl is moving towns now and starts to question what they are. He keeps up the bullshit and asks her to follow her own journey for now and what will be will be. She had the greatest experience of her life, for him, it was just another Tuesday.

The other day a group of Israelites sit opposing me. Six of them, three apiece, each one as unique and good looking as the next. I fall in love through the scope of my rifle. So good looking I put my free Palestine flag back in my bag. They were smoking joints, of what I thought was grass. What I was after at the time. I sat and thought about how I would approach them, if the want for a joint was stronger than my fear of rejection. Big bald one came over and asked for a napkin.

“I just got here; you got any advice on how I can get ganja?”

“I only do psychedelics”.

Not what I asked dickhead.

The waiter came and told them they aren’t allowed to smoke that here. Not like the Israelites to make themselves at home in someone else’s place. I didn’t speak to them but did get a wave from one of the ladies.

I'm an antisocial, shy, recluse, introvert and whatever other simile you can muster up picturing a man who hasn’t made a friend bar the staff of the establishments I frequent in the past 7 weeks. Why?

Raised militantly in the idea that any interaction with someone you have not already met is considered rude and a disruption. The fear of rejection. The fear of acceptance. The fear of seeing them again, being stuck with them. The fear of my ever-changing emotions and no ability to hide them. The fear of having to excrete the tiniest amount of energy to maintain a kinship. I don’t know, but the more I make a deal of it, the larger the dragon grows for me to slay. I don’t want to slay you dragon, but it would be nice to ride you.  

I sit in the darkness by the river.

on the steps the cows walk up and down

sideways.

I smoke from my pipe

and watch the stray dogs play with

each other

they give me hope.

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