Coffee at Powell's

Written by T.J. Phoenix

April, 1999 for Karl

How is it that it comes so easy to you? That dead certain calm, that crystalline demeanor that silences the one thousand joys and passions for the sake of fear.

"Calm down," you told me. "Slow down".

More times then I care to recollect. I want to scream in your general direction. Were it not for the restraining truth that all my angst and passion will move you not, I would. I wear your betrayal, like a scar. The force of conformity sprung by the hold of...

...stop here. Try again. Come on, please don't be so shallow as to spend pretty words. Phoenix, I'm talking to you. All you will get is the out-line of pity. The shape of regret hardened into some indecipherable lump, left on the sidewalk to be kicked... by some oblivious passerby.

I listen to them whisper. The self-righteous contemplation... as important as lint from your belly button. Oh my goodness! Everybody, look over here! Hey everyone, look at me, I have lint! Yes, sir, I have lint!

Five more minutes pass. I'm still looking for you of course. Always... always, looking for you. Still hoping, believing that when we find each other, that we will be what one another need.

Why are humans so wretched? So quick to be petty and shallow? Selling ourselves and the whole world, short.

Desecrate. And here I sit, seemingly cynical and unkind. It still doesn't change the fact that I feel like vomiting when my friends lick their greasy fingers, snacking on the deep fried remains of a tortured, factory farmed chicken. Not their problem,

No... not theirs. Certainly the chickens though...

Piss off. It just pisses me off. Because I need them to be better than this. To value, themselves, more... the way I value them. 'Necessary hungers" are one thing. But how about sustainable luxury for a change of consciousness. Why not spend that extra five dollars on some seeds, a plant, a book on nutrition... something. Why don't all people know...

Ah, yes. Well, I guess it's just the path we walk. We all walk a _different_ path. More ink upon the page. Why should these thoughts matter, anymore than any other. It is universal after all. And fleeting... all of it, fleeting.

He said I married him for his money. For three years and over and over and over again. And I suppose, that despite my protestations of innocence. That despite my insistence of our "higher" connection, that Life, Karma, even Synchronicity were all allies to the cause of my most fervent passion...

I was a fool. Self depreciating too.

I should have said,

"Fuck you."

" F U C K Y O U "

"Fuck you, Fuck you!"

I should have walked. ... and had that be then end of it.

Even now, though I have felt and lived with this righteous anger... writing these words, hurts. It touches on the deepness of the wounds. It hurts in the crystalline reality that inescapably draws me to my course and path. My freedom from cycles of appeasement and the suffrage of living with his objectification.

And _I _know_ , that his doubts arr the clearest reflection of his own fragile self esteem. Fragile. No... corrupted. Corrupted by a material greed that is used in place of a spiritual understanding. What did he know of the way of the spirit. The way of any spirit, least my own. That which is given freely, is what, shit? Why. Why?

Sometimes I ask myself, how do I continue in this place. This world. Listening to the complacent whining of people who would affirm and swear to truth of their unfair lot... their unrequited, deep burning passion. Where is their effort? When have they tried? Do they not know that soul love that fills the mind and frees the soul costs everything. Every fear. Every complacency. They must all be yielded.

Else wise, they block the sun and the growth it could provide. Do they bleed, suffer, hunger, lust, and struggle to remain? Do they see the wounds and scars of the crazy and infirmed? Do they do anything, to bring those in pain, back to a place of safety? Do they recognize the child within every strangers face and that child's need for affirmations and acceptance? When... when, do they hold that delicate silver thread which is the link to their very souls, with the encompassing love necessary for it's strengthening?

Set aside pride.

Fuck pride. It will never keep you warm. You want me to tell you there isn't inter-dependency. I can't. If you tell yourself that you can do it all for yourself, your lying. I prefer to shun such company.

Let us sing the choir of a thousand dreams and express them, each with their own unique, yet universal longings. Let us pass with some discretion on the movies and television and the voyeuristic emotional that takes us out of our own being and off center.

This is my place. My thoughts. If you don't like them. Don't read them! Stop, now! But you won't... will you? You want to know... what comes next. You're curious to find out if you will applaud or condemn me for my efforts. Did I waste these precious moments of your life? Or do you notice that the ticking of someone else's life, might be your own alienation from your own living. Convoluted, perhaps. But think about it. Each day you are given this time to spend. How are you spending it?

Ambition and hunger. Do you think that they or love and friendship are any different for me? Than you... I want to make a scene. I want to turn over the table here. I want to pick up my chair and slam it against the floor and scream: "Seize the day. Life is short!"

'Why aren't you listening? Damn it! Why aren' t you listening? Not to me. Don't you get it yet? This isn't about me, I'm only one messenger.

Why aren't you listening to your own heart?

I won't reek havoc on this noble coffee house where so many have say in tranquility and solitude before me. It is not, after all, my nature. Practicality, is a part of the acknowledgment of the life web we all share. Even you, who turn away and call it by another name.

To walk away from love: which was never recanted or proven false... And yet, not only to leave, but to proclaim your lack of faith, to deny the soul connection, shows... what, of you? To bear your false witness against the fabric of my heart? To nullify a soul contract, that we exchanged in freely? Shattering it, rather than releasing it: with honor and love? Where is your honor and your love?

I signed off on a piece of paper, one penned in my own hand. I "released" my legal rights to his assets, and monetary concerns. It was the only thing, he wanted from me. Not my love. Not my unborn children. Certainly not the complexity of my more than slightly tortured psyche....

Why is it... everyone wants a beautiful, fertile piece of land? The arguments, the fights, the contests. The emotions too raw to translate into in well intended action.

And yet, that which is wild, with the possibility of beauty? That which upon first conveyance, may seem too much, may in fact with sweat, suffering and sacrifice prove to be the worth of fervent dreams. Finding that balance in the wild and with it, replacing self-doubting and fear with reliance and strength. Finding a force to fully believe in.

What will you be when your strength is called... and your muscle and bone and brain better adapted to higher altitudes then first your could have conceive? Was Everest, ever a beautiful place?

When was it not? But now... Not your vision, nor your belief. There is no kindness nor slightest friendship shown. Imagine the kindness you could have given yourself and me, to have left my esteem intact?

Intact?

At least my soul is mending from life's' tempering. Did you ask, offer, try to see, from some perception other than your fear-based greed? Another part... another vision, that is an aspect of me.

All the wild beauty in it's eco-system rare, decimated by apathy, by hatred and by fear. And yet, take comfort here cousins, take comfort here. For it is the place I find my own shelter here.

One person.

One action.

One genuine smile, so rare.

Will create a cascade of joy.

One song.

One moment of strength.

One, tied to another... and then another.

Apathy, surrendered, in the face of devotion.

There is no shame in me for loving life with such passion as this.

If my light, brings comfort to one, than even in this sorrow,

still... I find bliss.

Think yourself kinder, and you will be.

I did not choose these shores of solitude. They were chosen for me. And yet, I will still sit here for the world to see. Unobtrusively sipping my coffee. Soon, it will be time to leave.

Soon it will be time to walk through the streets of downtown Portland again. Soon it will be time, to catch the train home again. Time to play my flute. Time to sing a song. And yes... court embarrassment yet again.

It is the action of my heart healing. The course of betrayal and wounds now leaving. A scar.

A scar. A scar. For all the world to see. He could not love me as I am, and so it was, he who had to leave: With unkind words, loves dis-ease.

Time.

Time.

What I will taste of it, I will live free.

Sing a silly choir, please laugh a while with me.

Show the children something to believe in.

A gentleness to free.

Stay the course. Stay the course.

Even in these rocky seas.