So history reiterates itself. Everything different, and likewise all the same. Another heartache, another year. I've read again all I've written here, and it could stand in for the present just as well. The same messages, hopes, tremblings, fears. The same self-told wisdom and warnings. You'd think I would learn.

Different, but the same, but different. When will I stop being surprised by the waywardness of my heart? I rein her in--tell her calmly it's for our own good. But she is an idealist, despite all the cynicism and practicality I can muster, and without warning she gallops off to seek and nestle against the true self of another, all evidence that might dissuade her notwithstanding.

She is in love again, and it looks as hopeless as it always has before. Does she only love those who cannot love her in return?

There is no way
to keep the wind off your neck,
except, perhaps, in sleep.

I would have danced
were I not already full
to bursting with the throb
and thrum of God
pulsing from the pot
belly of a
drum.

But there was no space
left for dancing
in my heart of hearts.
There is no place for souls to linger
in quarantine from
the defiling relentless rush
of mad busyness
after such transcendence.
No safe holding tank
for souls scrubbed clean
with wood and leather--
Germ-free and ecstatic.

There is no way
to keep the wind off your neck,
except, perhaps, in sleep.

It is impossible to discern what may have gone wrong. Was I living too long on oatmeal and cotton candy? I struggle to drag myself beyond the confines of my hermitage, where it is clear I have stayed too long. I can only hope that tomorrow I shall be strong enough for my daily labor, and shall be able to put aside both despair and longing.

Why so soon must appear the thwarting of hope that threatened to burst so brightly despite all attempts to temper it?

I'm discovering for my own part that happiness can be a matter of the choosing. And that personal inclinations are not fixed, but malleable entities, which are capable of significant twists, even complete double-backs when the occasion calls for it. A person can choose to like something they were once not so enthusiastic about, and it would seem that the converse is also true--that a person can choose to dislike, or at least to shun, something they once thought adamantly they could not do without. Eventually the choosing, which begins as an awkward struggle to bend oneself in a direction seemingly contrary to the natural grain, in the right circumstances, can produce and cultivate positive sensations so natural, that one would wonder--and often does--exactly where the point of struggle was. Why was it so difficult to choose that which would have ultimately been the remedy for so much striving?

I fear that I talk too much. I do this mostly when I'm nervous, anxious, or otherwise stressed, but anymore, it has practically become the norm. It's as though I'm frantic to be heard--to be understood. But, then I panic with the sudden realization that I'd far rather not be fully understood. I'd far rather cherish my secrets and magic than have them vulgarly laid open before the gaze of all.

A wise person speaks but little, and does not feel so intensely the need to be understood, if indeed at all. I know I am far from wise, and forgive myself for it, and yet, I wish to be wise.

Sin is but missing the mark. I am, at once, not as I should be, and yet everything I am able to be at this time. One day, I shall know better, and shall not strive so any longer. One day, I shall know balance.

Reason's inexorable commentary causes Emotion to shudder--to cower and cringe in humiliation. Emotion begs mercy of Reason, but Reason points to fact and past proofs, and in their harsh, unforgiving light, Emotion can only concede, though with heavy heart and weary feet.

Hope flees witless and starving.

Every second of every day, it's already over. It's been and done and gone. This moment, alone, is all there is.

Relinquish, relinquish, my dear. It is to your destruction you would cling.