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And as the sound of rain cast over,

the loneliest night,
I had seen in ages,

I wondered;

What were we now,

that the stitches had finally been,
cast off.

Forever sewn between the moments we longed for,

wrapped around 
the indifferent,
 milky,
neck of time.

Around and around and around. 

No more fighting he said.

And I knew it was over.

Because fighting is all there is,

in the war of love.

My fishy gills.

His feathered wings.

And all the space that exists between them.

So much love for one another,

with one eye facing up,

out of the distorting water.

I could have lived,

forever in the moment,

when his laundry soaked my hands,

in the grime

of his hard won days.

Coming clean on the line,

night after night.

And with the rain coming down,

I became less lonely,

remembering the smell 

of skin,

and hair

and blankets. 

Remembering the way

it feels to be loved,

as one loves pure reason.

Sickly.

Powerful.

All encompassing love.

And how close we came,

to having it.

Forward

Amidst these broken towers, these relics of Babylon, a soul lives. I know it through the expressive way it licks the empty remnants these empty eye sockets. The experience of all things as things – and metaphor -congruently hungry, adding sweetness to desire.

Passion is the fruit of absence and abundance.

Freedom is knowing I don't have to protect what is infallible.

Joy and Vision and Empathy.

Running with the spark. Setting fires in the days, extinguishing them in sleep.

Waiting away harm.

Lost inside the beggars pantomime.

Awaiting twilight coolness,

to dim the flame.

I am still here. Whole, complete and unmarred. On foot in, one eye out. Not blind to the gypsy crowd gathering behind me. Navigating new mental territories, still map-less and coming up fine. Lipstick ready on he banks of the Brisbane River.

Better left to let the bleed cover the tracks.

There's no way out but forward.

Around the World with Jami Cakes

I met this beautiful girl in Italy, where she was staying at a hostel I was working at. We connected instantly on our love of food and of solo travel. She spoke Italian and I loved to eat Italian food, it was a match made in heaven. 

It was brief but we have kept in contact ever since, supporting, encouraging and leaning on each other through our respective trials. South America was somewhere we talked about travelling together. Unfortunately I'm not able to just yet, but I hope that you will join me in sharing her fascinating and passionate life through her blog. 

Around the World with Jami Cakes: LA to LIMA AND A SENSE OF FAMILIARITY IN BETWEEN

Attention

All experience is shared, either through experience or knowledge. All human emotions, all human experiences for that matter exist within a range. We can browse experiences but we do not lease their unique DNA for our own. We own the rights to our perspective only.

I wanted so badly to know myself as a unique. A Colorform on a wide and expansive sheath of space, free to stick, un-stick at will. But it seems we are more akin as vassals conducting our lives to pressure, expectation, conditioning, fear and culture; despite my greatest protests.

But what part of me protests?

And what part of me conforms? 

Are they really mutually exclusive?

Or part of a larger anxiety? 

A Push-Me-Pull-You of wanton grief and longing, running between acceptance, greener pastures and the long lonely migratory road between. Chasing that rainbow, despite knowing it has no end and no answer. It is my act of faith, my religiosity, to believe still, despite the evolution infront of me.

No peace in my heavenly doctrine, it is a fallacy of my own making. A fairy tale, that sets me off to dreamland each night and rouses me from its warm embrace, my happy place, between hot sheets, swaddled in the loving embrace of my fabric God; one part sandman, one part Dali Lama.

Where to go from here? Caught in the high clutches of a revealing perspective, somewhat aware of my own stupidity, in yet not quite sure what to replace it with. I don't want to give in. I don't want to give up. I don't want to loose in the game I have created for myself. My try, to walk my colorform ass off the sheet and say something. A grandiose jet fuelled concept, to hot to touch without the gloves delusion on, right hand narcissist, left hand maniac. 

Now let's play with these corrosive ideas. Burning bridges, burning futures, burning potential, fuel for the fire to keep this ego warm. Keep my masses satisfied, all those gathering in the court of my mind, spread the heat, the warmth of my love. Burn this life, for the characters that dance, indefinitely in this grey-space, in step to the bombastic twitches of my firing neurons. Brain chemicals as dry as 19th century water troughs, evidence of last nights party of beggars, criminals and warlords gathering in wait for my moving diatribe.

Attention! Attention all! I am about to say something profound and meaningful. I am about to change your life, to make you happy, to solve your problem with my monumental skills in articulate elocution.

Attention one and all. . .

Listen

Life is not a class in comparative literature. You do not get to write your story and compare and contrast thematic effectiveness with others. 

Stop feeling sorry for yourself because somehow you don't measure up. There are no answers as to who you are, in the lofty longing realms of desire.

Dream not of someone elses body, but feel and experience your own. 

Dream not of a better life, but how you can make this moment everything you need it to be. 

What you need is an intangibility written into the stars, you just have to reach out and grab it. Not in a song, or a book, or a series of photos of someone else life, but deep within yourself. 

There is a voice. 

Listen.

Failure

here's to mistakes.

here's to imperfections.

here's not not caring what they think.

here's to passion,

sloppy, messy, undone, manic, unfinished passion.

here's to misspelled words.

to underachievement.

here's to untidy rooms.

to distraction

and a lack of time management

to missing the details

others seem to obsess upon.

here's to a disorganized mess,

you can still find something in.

here's to colouring outside the lines.

to running a muck,

talking too loud,

and getting excited.

here's to unwashed hair

and clothes in a pile,

on the floor.

here's to inspiration

when it finds you,

in the middle of something 'important'

so important,

you have run off to the toilet,

just to write it down

even though

you know

you'll never use it.

here's to never being happy.

sleeping past the alarm,

fishing for every extra second,

to being late

for everything.

here's to impatience.

getting what you want

without all the trivial steps.

here's to grammar and spelling

and making a big mockery of the whole thing.

because you just couldn't give a fuck

what people think,

when you're trying to describe

the very subtle sound

the fridge door makes

when it suctions itself together

and how all doors

could benefit

from such a sense of completeness.

so fuck them.

fuck it,

if you don't fit.

fuck what you don't understand about them

I can guarantee you've given it more thought,

then what they have

to what they don't understand

about you.

so here's to taking a piss

all over the word potential

not that you can spell it anyway

they can keep perfection

they can keep right

you'll always have the fridge,

and how it feels

to be

alive.

Mick, one of my lovely regulars and fellow philosopher.

Faith in You

I am hearing the same song in two completely different places. One, a cafe in Paris over a year ago, and now here in this small cafe in an Outback town, still drinking skinny cappuccinos and trying to write a book.

Still in love with my life?

Still passionate about travel?

It seems I can't stop asking the questions. I've already gone down into the impermeable fabric of my mind, changed my own reality, saw the world through divine eyes, sat in misery and glory. I've done it all on a whirlwind, by the seat of my pants, alone and inverse to everything I had ever experienced. I've touched lives and been touched. I've crawled, clawed, drank, danced, ran and cycled my way around the world - to this very moment here. The bottom of this cup, it's warm, bitter bubbles settling in my stomach and this hot Australian sun. The buzzing of new creatures in my ears rides along with the incessant doubt, the persistent unending questioning of self and self-hood, value and values, life itself, people and their fallibility.

Stumbling my way through a mid-dessert caravan park, Stand by Your Man echoing from inside the one of the nomadic tin-boxes, lost to the muggy darkness;

Is this art?

Or failure?

Am I after something deeper and bigger? Or running from the bigger things I can't face? Like the implied mediocrity in 'real life', expectations and potential, neither actualized nor obtained. Hidden in the underlying layers of all my academic failures and all my half completed projects was a sense that one day, one day I would come good. All these ideas, feelings of isolation and loneliness, this competitiveness, the ease in which I spin – am I not capable of more than just creating family? Am I not more then the weight of my sheets, tea towels, Sunday BBQ'S and band practice? Worth more then just a job? Colour coordinated file folders, only using pencil, call backs and out-of-office replies? Or are these just the pleas of an outcast kid, with not a lot of guidance, fighting against the wanting sense of normalcy?

I find it difficult to be alright with myself. I find it difficult to not want everyone to love and care about me. I find it difficult to let go, of people, of the past, of things that don't work. I find it difficult not to get depressed easily. I find it difficult to get up in the morning, to stay focused and passionate life; and when I lose that, I loose everything. Because what else do I have, besides my bare-foot road side gypsy dreams? This is me coming good, and I still have to drag my ass every step of the way.

Maybe that's just the way it is. Maybe I'm not alone in that. Maybe the magic of life really is in the reflection, wrapped up in nostalgia and comparison. The best you can do sometimes is to keep exploring, keep learning, approach the newness with compassion, and even when you loose faith in it, try not to loose the faith, the world has in you.