The beast unseen, the routine. The slow callous of the soul. How quickly we fall into the beautiful comfort of the monster with a velvet mouth; familiarity, security. The sound of the door slowly creaking closed, the spirit realm behind an eery knowing you cant trust.
The beast unseen, the routine. The slow callous of the soul. How quickly we fall into the beautiful comfort of the monster with a velvet mouth; familiarity, security. The sound of the door slowly creaking closed, the spirit realm behind an eery knowing you cant trust. The price I pay to get to the source, to fall into the current, to remember what all this is: a whispered sentence. The beast in front of you slays your heart open and the blood of the kingfisher is black ink, is music, is art, is god.
You are never by yourself, you are with yourself. And that loneliness is a reflection of your company, your presence. How beautiful to wake up knowing what the plan is, knowing the timetable and the meals. And you stop believing in god, not because of hardship or intellect, you just don’t think about him, because he is within you, and you're without, behind the thick layer of skin, and there's no reason to go in there, cause the man outside is in control, the man on the outside has it all sorted.
Until life happens, until the slow pressure of mortality and impermanence slowly builds on the glass holding the welling swells so precious. The waves in the ocean and the clouds in the sky remind you it’s always moving. Then you hurt your back, and get scammed, and your shoelace breaks, and you cant find your wallet, and your favourite tv show was ruined by success. Then all the music starts to sound the same, starts to sound bad and irrelevant, and the movies are boring because you just want them completed. And you realise you feel the same but without a reason for it, then that makes the same feeling a little worse because it has no where to dance. Like being hungry after a meal. Like being hungry because you are bored. You start to ask yourself, what is the point? As if there needs to be one, as if logic is life, as if reason is dignified. And the thick layer of skin that is the callous of the soul is what I like to call the ego. He is very sure of himself and he is very beautiful and I need him the same way a landscaper needs a shovel. But he has one problem, he knows he is going to die, and not just when the body I have borrowed to experience the brown eyes of beautiful women, the smile of my niece and the humour of my nephew beyond his years, but he is going to die a few times a day. He is going to die because he is a mirage of his surroundings, because of the voice within his head, the biomes in his stomach and the needs to survive. He is going to die because he was designed to, because that is what keeps him alive, as someone new in the same time in a different place.
So the fear is back because I venture away from the comfort of a room I shared with my brother as a teen. And I go to write a new book and realise I am nothing. And I see new faces without the courage to care what is behind them.
Yes, I might not know anything now but I’m just doing my best to keep the eyes open and the heart alive for when I do. Because everyone I love will die, some before, most after, and I will die and meet death; the lonely skeleton, and when I do I’ll give him a hug saying, I wasn’t too late. Because I do have empathy for death; for everything he touches dies. What a heavy burden, to never be consoled, never be hugged, to never be welcomed. When it is my time I wish to show death a smile, I wish to hold him, because we are all alone, we all need a warm embrace from time to time.
So I packed my bags and headed to India again and if could put my motivation into a nice little sentence I probably wouldn’t need to, maybe there is nothing for me at home just now, except everything that will still be there when I return. I have missed that type of fear, the type of fear that requires awareness, to make sure you don’t lose something, something like your passport or anal virginity. I like feeling small, I like being on the same side as my ego, the same side as my soul, and close to the energy source that we all share, even you, tall pine tree to my right that triples the cold with your shade. When you feel small enough you slowly become everything, and you realise how good the sound of an old mans voice is as he sings with sincerity.
I don’t want to hit the hash too hard and become an anti-social reclusive mute, I don’t want to hit the piss too hard and become a lazy grump, but I am in the same town as the Dalai lama, and what are those wants but cheap desires?
Dharamsala has changed, the Israelis that funded the cafes and jewellery shops have gone home to slaughter small brown children, and I miss them. As I walked up the steep hill to my favourite café, where I painted on the tables, drank, smoked, and my inner turmoil portrayed as contentment to the external eyes to consider me wise, it was gone. Sky high café is gone and stripped of all its essence. As three new faces painted the empty ribcage I knocked on the locked door.
“Yash is gone, left about six months ago.”
To come back to the same place has its joys, you can see how far you have come, you can remember fears that now seem trivial, you can push your shoulders back with a sense of confidence and pride in the fact you know where to go. Then, if the place has changed you are nothing but just you again. It can fill you with a touch of deep sorrow. What the kids call, ‘FOMO’. The fear of missing out. And the place is a place and the people are no longer within. As if you have gone back to school but none of your classmates have, none of your friends.
And I say, “Hello Beast, hello.”
Cut me clean in half and let the spirits out, I love them, I miss them, and they type now, scared but expecting it, with faith, faith without a religious affiliation, just faith that everything is going to be something, something alright with the alchemy you're learning.
Turn it to gold Riley.
To the deep voice of Dave Van Ronk.
With the warm kingfisher in your hand and the frozen toes on your feet.
With the memories of the strangers who became everything.
Look at all those strangers down there, waiting to become my wife, my best friend, my stories.
And a donkey walks up the hill that is covered in rubbish, after a man peeled free an ice cream and handed it to his girlfriend as he threw the rapper on the ground, being romantic and disgusting, and now a lady walks up the hill protected from rape by god, making her the ugliest bitch I've ever seen, and the donkey throws his big long head at a dog who is curious in his conviction, and everything is freezing whilst the beer stays warm, and he litters whilst being romantic, giving an ice cream beneath the smell of the snow and slapping mother nature in her gorgeous face, and nothing makes sense as they stop playing cricket for two seconds to let the donkey and ugly woman and chivalrous disgrace go by with his Juliet, as a man who is writing books for people that didn’t ask for books sits on his balcony watching; I just have to say, to be in a world that doesn’t make sense, not being able to make any of myself, and… still feel okay. To still hear the youth in music, the wisdom in words, the love in a smiling face and the warmth of beauty in everything you know enough about, it just feels quite relaxing.
The blood of the Kingfisher, the small blue bird bleeds black ink on the page.
Welcome back.
