The Surburban cement-scape is becoming all too familiar to me in its brutally vacant rawness.
Everyday I wake up to a window with a humble tree tending to quiet sky-whispers, on a tiny plot of grass adjacent to the sea of asphalt. It is a daily reminder of the taxes which are rendered to Caeser, which goes into the infrastructure of the world's most cruel and backwards economy. So all flamboyant illustrations aside, it gets really tiring to drive from place to place, connected to a cellphone to direct my next destination. Intellectualizing the concept of 'space' and 'property' can relieve the tension, but only produces wormwood juice. Maybe it's relevant, but I can talk to myself using a string of disjointed climax thoughts which conceals the valleys in between, pretending to be expressing the highest truths when my fellow vessel detects a desperate scramble within my deepest being for connection and release. I have the most curious ability to detach and then reattach to humanity, but I often pass it by without notice, until my hunger pulls me back. The hunger is so human, and it aches for the purest divinity, but my appetite has been trained to receive an unnatural diet. If humanity were like the natural landscape over which we've piled layers of cement over in order to transport these steel modules which carry money-driven motivations and other fragments of illusions to build the Babylonian empire, as my heart of flesh has been paved over with stone, then where can it find the tiny crack through which a strong vine can break through and all the organic creatures of the earth can find refuge and life in its Majestic, Eternal Growth? Our hunger is this crack. I must'nt neglect this tiniest, lowest voice of my spirit whose cry is for the Vine.

Truth before love. Love based on truth.
Please touch me, hold me, be held by me. Frosting, sweets, junk love.
Growl, I bite you! Wild beasts roam, without a master.
Control is not love.

I'm holding onto the words surrounding you, like an aura and a veil.
Do you love me? My hope fills me with desire
Yet you desire to be desireless
Listen to me, wait for me, care to build me up.
Love builds up, but knowledge puffs up.
When the perfect comes, the imperfect will fade away.
Such is the glory of man.

The glory of man is a woman.
Who was deceived, and caused both to fall into temptation.
Fall of mankind, separation from God.
Who am I to separate man from God?

We entered in the new world, together
We ached for the land subdued
You swaggered to its coasts while I dug the soil
It was within our grasp
But distant
And words themselves were unattached, as ships
Without a captain on an unmapped region
Tossed and pulled by an earthly force
To attach our souls.
We held our bodies together, but our minds apart
Sending pieces of our hearts
On the ships across the reckless storm.
Upon receiving news of one, the other's
Yearning is temporarily soothed.
The solitude is gentle but mournful.

I birthed inspiration
last night. The contractions were less severe than usual,
Though it took a little while
The world formed a membrane around my imagination
and my joy was beginning
to suffocate.
I was tempted to plunge into the fog
where there is refuge from reality. Returning
to slumber, to the womb.

I lie awake, and unsullied

Willing to succumb to my mother's heartbeat
Reverberating throughout the cavern of ambition, where corpses of
Ill-timed dauntless pioneers have long since dehydrated

And the newest ones
swell their elastic skins in anticipation
Of liberation

Open and breathe, there is no darkness
Where we are going
In the flow, blowing through the cobwebs
And dust

Oh, this Love flows so deep
It's so precious, the blood
I can't help myself but give you praise
my life and everything it comes with.
You have washed me so pure!

I am so in love with Your majesty.
Nothing can take this away from me!

Christ:

You are fairer than the sons of men;
grace is poured upon Your lips;
therefore God has blessed You forever.
Gird Your sword upon Your thigh, O mighty One, in Your majesty and Your splendor.
And in Your splendor ride on victoriously because of truth and meekness and righteousness;
and let Your right hand teach You awesome deeds.
Your arrows are sharp: the peoples fall under You;
the arrows are in the heart of the King's enemies.

Psalms 45:2-5

We chimed the stars with our talk of destiny
Staring into its reflection on the twilight sea
Letting the roots unfurl into our flesh
And the branches intertwine.
You pinched its fruit for ripeness,
And the ripest ones descended from above your reach.

You traveled so far a distance, a sage
Communing with the leaves

Flower beds and snowy peaks cradled a lonely search
For the depths of richness, transcending the eye

Hungrier, still but you searched granite faces
Across mountain ridges
For a sign of divine compassion upon an earthly man.
The surface has yet to be pierced.

The hardened heart shatters my tongue
I taste the distance with my feet when I
Cling to the Love that binds for eternity

That flesh were mist, I could vanish when you exhale.
Open hearts lay bleeding on the surgeon's table
As He cuts away the garment of flesh.
That hope is reality, I walk on the waves when He calls.
Shadows respond to death, but my spirit responds to Life.
This Life has a name.

I woke up crying this morning because I was hurting from being in studio all week and weekend, sick and burdened. During our final reviews, the professors were critiquing our diagrams and axonometrics. After two and a half hours of painstakingly poring over each individual's work, as I was feverishly praying to Jesus to calm the storm in my head, they give us a break. I rush back to the studio to finish off the rest of what I needed and pinned it up. My work looks sickly and underfed, like myself. It's time for me to present, so I take a deep breath and exhale a stream of consciousness that seems to disturb the female professor, who frowns at me like I am a weed in a bed of beautiful budding sprouts. The class is a set of chess pieces. They are gentle with their criticisms, although I can feel their disappointment and I meekly nod at their suggestions. Of course, yes, I can do better, I will work harder. I can do that.

There is something serene to the surrender of my ambition to excel in this class. I used to be able to harness this energy, but I have grown beyond the point of grasping these fine hairs of theoretical education. The people in the class are brilliant and focused, but I cannot match their energy. I surrender to God, who is powerful above all authorities and thrones, and He is meek and humble. I find rest.

Z comes by, to give me acupuncture and we have a light conversation about people, thoughts about each other, some words of comfort. I am distraught, but I do not reveal it to him because he does not react well to anything that will upset his balance. I wonder if that will do well for our future. Perhaps I must struggle with this alone. Perhaps this is good for me. I am still learning a lot about myself. I cannot let fearful attraction be the center of my relationship with him.

A good friend comes over for a little while, and he is searching for something as well. It comes out reflectively through tranquil illustrations and observations. He describes a snapshot: A boy with a red helmet stand before his reflection in the pool. He holds an old yellow tether ball, and the pool reflects the blue sky. I want to know about this boy's life, but my friend does not want to put all of his cards on the table. We play with my prism glasses for a while, trailing our rainbow shattered fingers over the light. He ponders on how every experience with a friend may be the last one. I can see how much he has grown.

My inspiration washed over me like a sudden rising of tide, but I lost my grip and let it pass.
Lately, my thoughts have all been tied to the ocean. I wish I could open my heart to him, but I still haven't cracked the code myself.

I'm wasting time on the computer, blogging about my day. I have lots of projects due tomorrow, yet I am not alarmed by the amount of work due and am waiting to become desperate. It is the remnants of my self-destructive patterns, which are slowly washing away with the tide.

He tells me to enjoy life, it's like ice cream that must be consumed before it melts.
The dog barks, and splashes water from his bowl all over the sidewalk, the same place
where we played a silent game. Eye Heart You.

He can wink with his eyes closed.
Some people have a neurotic psyche, and you don't want to stare them in the eyes for too long.
Berkeley bums have hungry eyes, searching for the deeper nourishment seated within the hearts of tender humans. Sometimes I am running low myself, and I hoard my grain. I find out it is safe to share.

My knees have been less pained because he tells me to adjust my walking. I love my feet now, because he kisses them. I love myself now, because he kisses me. I want to teach him how to swim properly, even though he surfs. I want the ocean to remind him of me.

Telling myself I won't go back,
I won't go back.
It's so beautiful, the mirage.
It's so devastating, the brimstone.
If I lose my saltiness, will the Lord turn me into salt?

But I'd rather be a fig tree,
Whom the Lord walked under one day,
Nourished by my fruit.

I can already hear the words you will use,
Ignorant, Fixated, Brainwashed.
But do you question why my heart turns away from
A seemingly good thing?
I have tasted better.

I hear His voice, and it is Life.
Truth, Flowing, and Free.

There I go again, stumbling over myself
Retracing the steps of my childhood,
Fixed upon a mirror.
Captivated by Vanity's lies,
I forget the unseen reality in which I have been born.

Are you in love with my shadow?
Why do you beckon, when you want so much
To discard your own?

But I will never forget the day
My shadow met you, and we danced for a little while
In the reflection of a promise
Until my spirit realized that without Christ,
Nothing is perfect.

Your inspiration comes from the mountains and the moon
The ocean carries your desire, you ride her passion
Carving her body with your strength
All your life's momentum, released in a crashing moment
To discover your own depth.

How you carved through life, caught the waves from my heart
And translated it into another challenge.
You spoke to the waves, though they did not reply...
You did not wait for it. You could not obey.

How I wanted to speak!
But I've come to understand that I have no command
Over my own heart,
As of all realities. My waves gently lap your legs
As your face sets with the sun, hardened with determination
The water undulates from the rhythm of divinity
As you skillfully ride on your balance, exhilarated

I am engulfed by my own desire to have you
But you are but a man.

I have already been tamed once,
by one whose voice the wind and waves obey.
Under his command, I am in eternity
And one with the sky...
There is no other.

I beg the Master to change the seasons,
To unite us, to consume a man, defy your will
He tells me that He has given every man the universe
To discover Him, and the right to deny.
Now I am silenced once again, compelled to wait
As love does
For you, for you, for you
to discover the Author of the mountains, moon, and ocean.
I pray we will meet again.

The Lord is gracious and merciful;
Slow to anger and great in lovingkindness.
The Lord is good to all,
And His mercies are over all His works.

Psalms 145:8-9

You make walking feel like flying
And waking like breathing
Trying like hoping,
Giving up like breaking free