For Dwight

I'll preface by saying that I tend not to spill the stories of my life too far from home's ear (as I see it to be an unnecessary writhing for some type of attention).

I'm only breaking custom this time as the events of the past few weeks have made me long to extend what lessons have been affirmed so many times over. I am not, nor ever will be a preacher...but in my own dense apathy, there is a deep hope for us as humans to accept and move on. 

Background:

There has been lingering taste of uncertainty regarding my own father's well being and by listening in to my family's feelings towards the situation, I've come out to simply say: leave thy embittered bones at the door.

For a good portion of my life, I dressed every day in angst and loathing, unable to accept the faults of others as well as myself. True, it only gets easier with each moment to succumb to wars of the world, but it leaves no room for the beauties of life.

Learned:

After loosing a cousin late last month (essentially from drinking herself to death), and continuing to watch a man, now in his fifties, let some masochistic desire ring loudest of all, I've grown all the more certain of our need to forgive and continue onward. 

We are all guaranteed death, my friends, whether it be by natural causes or our own hands. Given that every day you are here is one that you've chosen to continue this stupid little adventure, I can only hope that you reach for the best that your life has to offer you.

Every person on this planet knows pain in some shape or form. Whether it be not being able to take the Mercedes out for the weekend to impress some lady-friend, or waking every day hungry and without proper care - it is relative pain nonetheless. 

In order to build the best years you can, you must use what makes you miserable to strengthen your ideals and become a better, stronger, and (of course) happier person.

Closing:

I say all this as I fear but the accept the fact that my dad may not have another five years left in him. The essence of self-destructive pattern. 

So I write this, to you and all, the lessons of well being that so many have tried to teach our friends, acquaintances, lovers, brothers, and sisters – Make peace with whatever hatred that plagues you. Make peace and share love with each other.

I'll officially end this note with a poem I starting writing for my father some time ago only to finally finish last year. 

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"Welcome to Vermont, Denver Birth"

When the time comes, layer me son.
Pull silence over eld, let your days 
calm as an old man’s ashes over older
man’s soil,

and layer me with the peace of
brotherhood. At night, in sweat, I 
can still hear the calling of empty 
lots lost in songs from a nip bottle.

They ring clear as tiger sigh,
clear as youth’s desire. 

They say that time is coming,
we’re aging well.

And somewhere, a Taconic Crest 
Trail, drenched in floods of shade – 
you’ll laugh with ghosts, piecing, 
forward pacing, 

waking as the shoulders of 
all-too-common beasts.

You’ll live with the inked 
paradise of a Williams Inn chlorine 
sip while I stand as the layer 
‘mongst older man’s soil.

For these, son, are notes from your hometown: 
a closing pub of purple in some western 
state of mind. A percussive lapse in some
other trickling majestic shine.

And these words, Jeremy, are but marks of an
old town: poor posture and an almost 
indistinguishable yellow tinge, Vermont’s air 
never holding us this way again.

So when it comes, layer me son. 
Let go of this, your fail speech, 
and wrap our history with 
gifts of time.

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Thanks for reading. 

Be well, friends, and listen to Cattle Decapitation \m/

- j.t.