Never again will I make the mistake of thinking that someone in love with what I write is the same thing as being in love with....the rest of me.

Where can I find people like me?
Do they actually exist somewhere
out there int the vast expanse of the world?

Or do I sit here bemoaning my self made exile
in the same vein that a child does when placed
in the corner as punishment for some transgression?

Even if there were some community I might
feel welcome in hiding with at some far
flung place pledging true freedom, still I would
suffer the pains of having a broken soul.

It's been a long time since I opened up
my shoebox full of pictures and saw myself
five years old and wading barefoot through
a cold creek....loving every second of it.

There's another polaroid of me feeding a mint
to that angry old donkey, dead years now,
but that ornery ol ******* and I had some
sort've understanding, him knowing his place
and me trying to discover mine.

Most of my life has been spent clawing my
way toward some ill defined future I thought
I had to travel toward in order to live well,
and now I find myself willingly going backward.

My Dad achieved his dream of having land when
I was fifteen, and when I came back to live with him
again, his land became my own, his cares for our place,
became my own, hauling rocks and worrying after fences,
being a part of something that we built from our hands.

The world changed quickly though,
and if I had been older and wiser I
would have expected that the eventual
break would appear when most we all
needed something of peace.

But those minutes in the clear creek,
and that grudging comraderie with a donkey,
getting off the bus when seventeen and having
horses recognize me as I walk down the dirt road,
hoofed friends meeting me at a gate every day;
that is the home I need...and one day will return to.

There is a point in some lives
when those living it
must accept that the
hope and the dream
which drove it
will only ever
be that;
a hope
and
a
dream.

I always forget
that Bourbon takes longer
to hit me than any other
type of libation, including
palm wine and fermented mare's milk.

This is possibly why I never
drink Bourbon when I'm in public,
except for those few major mistakes
which always resulted in near death.

The problem with near death experiences
when completely wasted,
is that you don't realize it at the time
so that you don't get the adrenaline
rush which you were looking for to begin with.

All that's left of that sort of night
are the moments of sheer terror
in between retching into the toilet
when you remember bits and snatches
of a bar fight or racing a Harley down
A1A in your beat up Honda.

It's moments like that when I wonder
if maybe I ought to have chosen some
other, less egregious drug to ruin myself
with, something mellow like ****** or
au'natural like ****, but the potheads I know
only ever spit up cheesy rap, and let's face it
****** just makes you nod off while ****** your soul.

We all have our vices, I've said before
and personally, I'm okay with mine sometimes.

Much rather have my own personal demons
than ones that I don't know so well.

I still think it's strange when people
tell me that I intimidate them,
always have and probably always will,
especially when women tell me that,
because by being able to say
exactly what I mean and how I feel
is threatening somehow?

I've been thinking about this lately,
the disparity between how I interpret
myself, and how others interpret me;
betting that if I could take a poll to
those that had some fire for me,
they'd agree with Angela that said she
cared for me mostly because I didn't judge.

Who am I to judge though?
It makes no sense to me, for people
to think that just because I stand up straight
and can speak well, I'm sophisticated or superior?
I know my own history, the things I've done
and more importantly not done, so then
how can I look down my nose at someone
whose shoes I've never walked in?

I guess I'm getting to the part that
should have been written about a
while back, should've been examined
and accepted rather than have the manly
thing done to it and buried like a dead dream.

I did care, I could have loved,
probably should have now that I
really think about it, could have had
something worth fighting for in a
place never expected or looked for.

But I'm good at walking away,
too good at cutting people out of
my life when things just get complicated
and frankly, complicated equals very painful.

This is the life I've made for myself,
much as I may hate it, I have nobody
to blame really, since we all have our
choices and we all have to live with them.

So I'll take another shot
and smoke another Camel
hoping that I made the right
decision to walk away once more,
but knowing deep down that
the only reason I ever did
was complete and utter *******.