fortieth year - 4

it was my fortieth year to heaven when everything changed when everything mattered when the only way to live it became clear was naked vulnerability tears wretched beautiful exhaustion in the activity called love

you see the smile that's on my mouth hiding the words that don't come out all of my friends that think i'm blessed they don't know that it is a mess they don't know who i really am and they don't know what i've been through like you do i was made for you

it was my fortieth year to heaven when i was gone gone when her voice snatched the wind from my chest in a weekend in california recorded and broadcast into my lost hearing where the key was offered fed and the limitless round of futility was stunted and abruptly usurped with love

om gate gate para gate para sang gate bodhi so ha

it was my fortieth year to heaven when the dinging clanging beauty of the truth infected my hearing like a red pill into the certainty blinding undeniable recognition

full collapse falling

you will die there is a reason you will die you don't have to die what to do to prevent it

it was my fortieth year to heaven when the color of melancholy covered you like silk when you became certain that the only thing worth doing was bathing in sadness because of its unsurpassable splendor when you were a tiny adult when every big important verse you ever learned memorized from compulsion was unlocked in the magic play of need

i really really need a raincoat

it was my fortieth year to heaven when i drove to the sight of my greatest triumphs and my greatest tragedies balled up in a tiny sleeping shed of bliss

nature's first green is gold her hardest hue to hold her early leaf's a flower but only so an hour then leaf subsides to leaf so eden sank to grief as dawn goes down to day nothing gold can stay

i'm not here this isn't happening

it was my fortieth year to heaven when i drove my son to school when you both sang at the top of your lungs for beauty for love for the boundless capacity of being a person

they say you got to choose your side and when it's done nobody right nobody wrong the day you let go is the day you are forgiven

it was my fortieth year to heaven when you watched your other son eliminate every single misunderstanding with the force of his smile

this is my final farewell my final belly-ache no alarms no surprises please

it was my fortieth year to heaven when you heard how it works again when the succinct paraphrase of a lifetime bled

this is how it works you're young until you're not you love until you don't you try until you can't you laugh until you cry you cry until you laugh and everyone must breathe until their dying breath know this is how it works you peer inside yourself you take the things you like and try to love the things you took and then you take that love you made and stick it into someone else's heart pumping someone else's blood and walking arm in arm you hope it don't get harmed but even if it does you'll just do it all again