It HAS been an eternity, and you HAVE been immortal. The world you feared would end someday, didn't. You dug your grave and waited for me, but I never came.

You let go of Love because you feared its end. You let go of people because you were afraid you would have to watch them go someday. You spent your thoughts on everything that mattered, except what really did. And now you come full circle to find only I am here to receive you.

Are you ready to tell me what it all meant? What did you make of it? Where has it led to?

Here. Now. This is what. This is where. This is all there is. All there ever was. All there ever will be, and this is exactly what you never expected. This is exactly what you never imagined, never thought of, never calculated. This is what never had cause to exist, but it did, because you did.

Am I being to cryptic? It must be the drugs. 

The weight you carried on your shoulders was only a ghost. There was no temptation. There was no pain. There was no wall. Now, look around you. As far as you can see, or you think you can see - because here you can see as far as you can think - as far as you can see there is nothing. No one. Except you, and I, and this endless void.

Now think and we - YOU - can fill this void with anything you want. There is the road to your house. There is your first tooth that fell loose at six. There is the pencil you borrowed for your final exam. There is your car, your keys, your jacket, your cell phone, your tickets, your bag, your books, your hat, your camera, your eyes, your mouth, there,there,there,there, 

Is that enough? Look around. We're neck deep in all that is you.

Now tell me again.

Why are you here, and not there?

Why are you here, with me at the end, and not where you are not?

Why are you not old? 

Why are you not sick?

Why are you not buried in debt, and worries?

Why are you not holding a child?

Why are you not crying?

Why are you not with her, instead of here with me?

Why are you immortal, spending an eternity, with me, at the end of a circle, instead of there, with her?

Age is the Cruelest Cage

Age is the cruelest cage. That Iron Maiden of the soul with its rancid breath and crooked face, and that catacomb's embrace which leaves nothing for desire, as ambitions expire with a twist of fate and tepid luck both conspiring to construct a fabric of a universe born of idle sighs.

Age is the cruelest cage, that draws its waters from a well of memories, as its daughters spin the yarn and tell stories of Kubla Khan and the Holocaust on Christmas Eve.

The night the World stood still of its own will on the edge of Its Awakening but slumped back into that abyss of Elysian slumber. When, from atop the shoulders of giants I saw the dawn rise above the brim of my teacup while Brahms and Bach stood face to face behind my back calculating the origin of the universe with their finger tips.

Under the bridge in Nan'an, sleeping in a box and waking to see the endless line of humanity carrying its womb on its back like a mutated tortoise in exodus from the city of salt leaving in its trail the bloody spots of human dreams strewn elegantly yet random on either side.

The old woman that smiled at me and then grimaced as sunlight poured down her face like molten glass. She was my granddaughter carrying my granddaughter on her back.

Down here under the bridge the sand is cool, and dark, and moist. It smells of Tinseltown blood mixed with molasses. Down here under the bridge the thralls of human industry never tread. Down here under the bridge, smoke and books still live on their taboos. Down here under the bridge it's always 1999.

Inhale,
Exhale,
and Discharge.

Stand on Buddha's palm and leap all the way towards the pillars at the edge of the world. You'll find your answers there, written in monkey piss.

Carry me back a thousand days and ask me when the world will end. I'll say "Around the bend."

"In a day or two when my words have run their course." Through and through I would say "The end is nigh" and sit in the corner waiting to die. But not today.

No, not today.

A thousand days ago was yesterday. 

Today I'll say "You wait and see.The end will come for you and me, and , what is more

"Age is the cruelest cage, an Iron Maiden for the soul. It will be harsh and cruel and long and infinitely more beautiful than you can imagine."