It is too easy to buy into the trash talk liberally sprinkled about this planet.

With access to an abundance of online platforms, all those thoughts, ideals, posts and propaganda discounting or documenting the evil ways of one faction or another are far too available on social or mainstream media.

It has become acceptable.

We are force-fed ideologies, dogma, practices and policies from politicians and posers (generally one in the same) preaching not just a better way, but the only way; their way; the right way (and it is oh-so-wrong). It is a world of scintillating sound bites and malicious headlines that don’t make sense.

It’s too easy to accept the bullshit that continues to pile up on the shiny floors of government or along the protester-lined main streets. It’s difficult to determine what really matters once caught up in this foolish chatter.

It has become too easy for politicians to stray from the business of guiding the country and getting caught up in the highly publicized displays of arrogance and shameless self-promotion. In their need to offer rhetoric instead of real truth, our leaders (no longer a meaningful term) slough off their intended roles.

A politician’s tradition role is to tend to the affairs of our nations, managing economies, propping up currency markets, and sorting through developing social issues, health care concerns, protection of the citizenry, and legislating the laws of the land.

It is their job, and they are paid to do it. Yet they don’t.

Shame on them!

No: shame on us. We allowed all of this to happen.

We bought into it, and continue to do so. It is served to us on silver platters, or sucked up from silver spoons. We have become trained to accept the politics of negativity. Instead of being allowed to embrace the principles of democracy offered and allowed in developed nations, we let those elected officials waste our precious time and resources on this damned one-upmanship we have allowed to prosper.

It is an abuse of power. Politics is no longer about party representation, or reinforcing and advancing the rights of the people. It is now, only and solely, a blood sport. We have just witnessed the conventions of the two major U.S. parties in an election year. Neither party has emerged from the respective gatherings as unified.

Unity, it seems, is no longer a platform for either party. Unity has become less of a concern for anybody.

We allowed it to happen. No, it hasn’t been an immediate thing. It has taken decades, and it began long before one American president began talking about a kinder, gentler nation. Over time, this top-down propensity for greed and power has accelerated to the point where it has forcibly entered our own very lives.

We have come to accept that this unabashed ignorance is a socially acceptable way of behaving. We are led by example. Too many of us are too quick to point out what is wrong with the way somebody lives or loves, instead of accepting the diversity of color, faith, sexual orientation or gender identity now openly available to us.

We have allowed video-game violence to become ethos instead of entertainment. It has become me against you, or them. Right now it is easier to say, “what the fuck is this whack-a-do talking about” than it is to consider that I may have a point.

It is more convenient to criticize a concept or lambaste an original idea than it is to find fault in questionable authority.

It has become easier to say ‘oh well’ than it is to ask ‘why’.

It’s like the off-colour sweater and unworn shoes resting in your closet. At the time, whenever that was, they seemed perfect. You bought them on impulse, yes; but isn’t that when you make some of your best decisions?

Not in this case. You’ve looked at them time and again, even slipped them on, on occasion, but they never made it much further than the mirror. Your head sunk in dismay. They were just there.

You can’t wear them, nor can you seem to pack them up and give them away to the Goodwill. They belong to you, but you refuse to own them, like all that other ‘stuff’; the parking tickets jammed above your visor, or credit card statements and unopened emails . . . or unreturned phone calls. Ignored, but evermore on the mind.

It’s not just the physical things — its, bits, and stuff strewn about our lives — that continue to cast a shadow across the here and now. Even the intangible becomes tactile. We all have thoughts that show up in the darker hours, over-amplified memories, or words stuck in the windpipe, along with the misguided metaphysical breath, shameful soul-talk, or full-throttle dreams of angst or anger.

All your low-level attempts at stepping up to a higher ground, they build up over time. You like to think they are held at bay, but they surface, again, to remind you what was or shouldn’t have been.

We become hypersensitive to our unlived dreams and time misspent, we continue to live there and continue to pay rent.

Own it. Just fucking own it.

As much as we can take pride in our accomplishments and things we’ve done well, we also need to recognize all the crappy stuff that splatters across our windshield. This is the mess that slows us down and reduces our vision.

We don’t do something because something else was done (or not done) years ago. Persons not even there, or places lived only in our subconscious, keep holding us back. And we continue to find the stupidest reasons not to go there.

It’s time to let all the stuff out. Make whatever attempt to say what needs to be said, give forgiveness or make amends. Speak now, off the cuff, or from the heart. Give voice to your doubts, your fears, or unreasonable reasons. Put them out there.

Own it.

To not open up the proverbial Pandora’s box, or to refuse to breathe the scent of time gone by, prevents us from being whom we should be, or from living in the now. It becomes part of an emotional deficit you cannot acknowledge. It belongs to you, and no one else, so you carry it through your private hell.

Clear it out. Find value in what is there, they are reminders, but maintain them only as memory. The lessons learned or bridges burned are from another time. The past has passed. What happened, what you had, made you what you are, but instead of allowing the baggage to weigh you down, use it to prop yourself up. Look at how far you have come, instead of wishing you were back there.

The misdeeds and temporary greed, the moonlight desires and liquid need. Own it.

Just fucking own it.

Then move on.

Our minds may have infinite capacity, but couldn’t we better function with a little more room to breathe?

© 2016 j.g. lewis

The angel at the table glares back across the clutter. Dirty dishes,
candy bar wrappers and tuna tins. Self-rolled cigarette smolders
on a side plate, the ashes of those before spilling over. Ignored.
Kitchen bulb, harsh and bare, casts bearded shadows across
the squalor. Joni Mitchell crackles from the speakers — a record
once played for a daughter — offering only the slightest comfort
needed on a day like today. A day where she
could use a friend as much as a fix. Depression familiar
to women who’ve lost a child, a fortune fit for no one.
A decade has passed, but not the pain.
The philandering husband who chose to grieve in other ways,
salt in a wound that never heals.
Self-medicating.
First doctor prescribed, then vintage imbibed. Now whatever
is there, whatever it takes, whatever she can find. She can
ill afford to be picky. The dollar-store diet, fortified by
middle-of-the-night gas station cravings, her pallid skin and
coarse complexion more becoming of an anorexic,
or crack whore.
Years of low-wages, welfare, and tricks turned in-between.
Home is now a third-floor walk-up furnished with a bed, table,
two chairs, a suitcase, and an old stereo. Nothing much.
Not even a photograph.
Inconsequential items pawned off, lost, or left behind.
Addictions, afflictions, and poverty can prune away all that
does not matter, and all that does not belong. Stagnant air
seasoned by sour milk and cigarettes, and bed sheets soiled
by the sweat of men who visit. It should never have been.
The angel has watched it all unfold.
Of course she cries, but only to herself.
Who else will weep?
A random ambulance screams into the night, flashing lights
animate the roomful of nothing. Street-level shouts from
a crowd of drunks, the white noise of her dark days. Searching
for a vein between the scabs and bruises, lesions that mark
a dead-end journey, finding space at the elbow’s crease
next to the ripening furuncle. She ties off and with hinky hand
stabs the needle into a tiny patch of waiting flesh.
A fervent rush consumes her entire being. Staring back at
the angel’s emerald eyes, her vision goes from transparent
to translucent, and then, not at all.
The angel wistfully watches,
a scene played out countless times before, shakes her head,
rises to her feet and shuts the battered door.

© 2016 j.g. lewis

 

Midnight arrives. No moon, new moon, clouds buffer the sky,
shifting moods, stars align. Where did the day go? Time stands still
without the presence of people, and a sense of substance.

Questions now. We carry into consciousness a dog-eared confusion
never hoped for. The longer it goes, the less you know. You want
little more to ignore the impendent humidity of a Van Gogh night.

Young hearts will find a way
old souls still remain,
but where would you go
if you knew the difference?

Deep breath. Full stop, amidst the barren dreams, night tremors, and
flashbacks casting dispersions on emotions and moments of repose.
Unsteadied in the innocence, unmoved by a prophecy unknown.

Reach out. All, which you see, cannot always be felt. Confronted by
constraints of an ever-changing sky, a complete spectrum of wonder.
All told, there are less reasons to know than less reasons to be.

Young heart will find its way
old soul knows the pain,
now would you go there
if you knew the difference?
© 2016 j.g. lewis

There is a tree on the highway between Brandon and Winnipeg, one I have passed hundreds of times, which marks the halfway point of the journey.

Roots deep and strong, the tree has been there my whole life, surviving deep-freeze winters, occasional drought, and the widening of the highway. It is an important tree, familiar to anybody who grew up in the area. Mention “the tree” and people immediately know where you were.

The landmark helped answer the ‘how much farther’ question from a restless kid in the back of a sweltering station wagon, and came in handy on any of the bloodshot drives across the barren prairies at 4 a.m., winter or summer.

The tree is a part of me, even now, if only in memory.

It’s too bad there aren’t more trees in our lives, markers to let us know something is halfway done. Yes, we have battery meters that let us know when our laptop or personal device is running low, gas gauges in the car, and clocks and calendars, but we need more organic clues to help us navigate this journey.

Don’t we often question if the glass is half empty, or half full?

We tend to do things differently when we get onto the second half of anything.. Knowing there is only one more lap around the track, we naturally pick up the pace to put in our best performance? If we are caught up in a particularly enjoyable evening, don’t we tend to ease up a little at the halfway point, trying to stretch out the pleasure to avoid the inevitable?

There can be increased optimism if something is nearly done, or added sadness because time is expiring. If we don’t know where we are, how can we know how to react?

June is, for all intents and purposes, the halfway point of the year. By its very nature it is a wonderful month for reminding us where we have been, and what we have done, while still allowing time to look ahead at the possibilities. Summer comes with June; and color, and optimism. Longer days allow a review of the grief and glory we have experienced, and provide increased light to renew your intentions and review your values.

This month is a pulse check. How is your heart beating? What remains unfinished, what is still undone, what more can you do? How will you do it? Should you even bother? Of course there are more questions, but there is still time for answers.