Do You Really Want To Know Why?

Because it's finite.
Because it's the only way to make the voices truly stop screaming.
Because it's the only solution with no more "what-ifs."
Because these meds that you're required to take to "save your life" have side effects.
Because rehab doesn't always work.
Because the voices, even when they're not screaming, don't ever stop.
Because the pain doesn't stop.
Because it happened when you were young and it will never go away.
Because it didn't happen to YOU.
Because you don't recognize yourself.
Because you tried for so fucking long.
For so many years.
In so many incarnations.
In so many decades.
In so many fake smiles.
In so many jobs.
In so many situations.
In so many bands.
Singing so many songs.
That no one will ever hear. Because the art is medicine, but only for so long.
Because their love was not enough to fix you.
Because money or approval or fame cannot stop the darkness.
Because the drugs don't work when you aren't sick.
Because the world is just sick in a different way.
Because you don't understand.
Because you don't understand.
Because You DON'T F*cking Understand.


*Wrote this the morning of Anthony Bourdain's suicide*

The Rebirth..

Kneel before Her, For she has been All Things:

Sainted Mother, Jostled Lover, Unkempt Feral Child, Ignored Wallflower, Tattered Party Favor, Stolen Innocent, Vengeful Eve, Junkie Prophet, Starry-Eyed Soul Gazer, Scorned Wife, Masquerade Mimic, Secret Guardian, Tainted Temptress, Midnight Muse, Runaway Heartbreaker, Pedestral Goddess, Gutter Gypsy, Bonnie to your Clyde, Psychotic She-Devil, Sultry Servant Girl, The One Who Got Away, The Girl Who Broke Your Heart, The Witch Who Wouldn't Burn, The Born Under A Bad Sign Baby..

Throw roses at her feet, And ask permission To be Reborn.

On Masking and Intimacy..

Post-meditation (and guitar) thoughts:

You can't have intimacy if you're pretending on any level. If you're masking, even if it is to avoid pain or to numb a response to past trauma, you are unable to be Intimate in that moment (even if your heart/brain/ego want to argue otherwise).

This is not a criticism; as pain, fear and trauma can be very real and must be confronted if you're going to hold any hope of defeating them. No, it is simply an acknowledgement that intimacy requires courage and vulnerability, even when it causes discomfort.

Tearing off the mask is hard. I've masked for almost my entire life. I know it well. I have deep compassion for the masks I see. But, the truth remains: You cannot have intimacy if you are, in any sense, pretending.

It is f*cking painful and difficult to face the truth: both the Beauty and the Terror. As a result, I have long been the Chief Architect of my own Loneliness, building my elaborate mask to navigate and shapeshift my way through trial, discomfort, fear and upheaval.

My principle work these days is in taking a sledgehammer to those walled-up defenses and in continuing to strive to be a person who is open, receptive, available, accountable and wearing my actual face.

If someone is going to love you, me or anyone else, let it not be for any projection or affection. Let it be for The Messy. The Real. The Beauty and The Terror. It's all gotta be in there.

And believe it or not: It's the Good Stuff, y'all.