some deserve tall tales.. some wrote 'em..

hardening of a heart.. gold melts.. the day the time comes my heart is set to judgement against a feather i'll bear not the weight of burdens. i'm guilty of no crime. only sins i've committed are to myself. every day is a struggle when you are your own worst enemy but i'm not scared; trouble is no stranger of mine. i'll bind my story in leather and seal it with string.

i learned that we are made of stars. i learned that we should shake one another with excitement about this news. the nonbeliever believes in something. a wiser man than myself once mentioned that he knows not enough to be an atheist. i'm no atheist. i'm only child more confused than you are. i'm content with my upbringing of card-castles and legos. i still talk to shadows in mirrors.

i do want to shake the world by the shoulders. one day i'll slap the crown off of father-mankind-human. one day i'll prove that our species is worth saving. sometimes i think there is so much beauty in the world that it burns like heartburn. slow down, my brothers.. drink life slowly and cheers your overflowing cup carefully. tonight we sit at the same feast. one of you among us will betray me. ah... the scars of learning are beginning to reveal themselves...

european istanbul

last night i sojourned back to my origins on the european side of istanbul. it was my first time back in almost two months and it felt good to be back. taksim is a crazy place, its hard to believe i spent three months there considering how different this last three months of my turkish adventure have become upon the asian side of the city. i got to see the blessings of my nearest and dearest friends i've made in this city over the months as well as the heated beginnings to yet another protest on istiklal street. the night took me deep into the memories of living in a part of the world which boats the most beautiful rooftop terraces and smokey mornings made hazy by the early sunlight. part of me really misses living there.
















needless to say i made my was past sultanahment and into an infiltration of the grand bazaar early this morning. i have not been here since i first arrived in september and sometimes its nice to be a tourist for a day. this time around i speak the language enough to make good conversation with the hagglers and shopkeepers. i drank chai deep in the heart of the bazaar with two women from sweden and a cat who shamelessly drank from a sacred washing fountain. the grand bazaar seems of a blast from the past into a time when sunday (pazar) was the day to come to the city center to trade goods at the open market. the colors are beautiful from within and the endless clustering mazes that make the bizarre are compellingly confusing. its hard to find your way around and easy to wander off into endless corridors of sound, color and light. if youre a good navigator of the grand bazaar you can find several hidden secret gardens where old men play tavla and sip chai. plants and trees grow from the stone corners of these secret places and being there feels like you are in the eye of the storm that is the grand bazaar.







i walked from sultanahmet to eminönü so i could catch a glimpse of the boğaz before crossing it at the harbor in karaköy. its a really cool sight to see the endless lines of fishermen casting their lines over the great bridge. it was a beautiful day to walk across the splashing of "the throat" of istanbul.

















i ended my journey with a long and relaxing boat ride back to the asian side of which i now hail from. its been too long since i've taken this path whereas there was once a time i did this every day.

to home from istanbul with all my love,
mookfish

si la tierra tiembla, si la tierra tiembla..

(para mandy)

then a big circle closes, and it begins to make sense. find a revolution and join it. my hands wear their scars well and my eyes burn in unnatural light. a circle of friends form a ring around a fire and we laugh at the stars. god i'm so far from home.. i can't be broken.. afgan dreams.. like the blinding beam of light that is valium. i still wake up and don't know which nation i have landed on. your name written above your bed in dragons, from a county fair. waking up in the sun is wonderful. greasy sleep face and warm sheets. a big circle closes.

yeah.. we pay our debts some times.. with a voice less cryptic will i speak. i'm not there yet. in fact i'm far and at a greater distance than i've ever been before. what a blinding and chaotic beam of light.. i'm so far from home..

trees at night

i fell asleep astoundingly at about 8pm with every intention of sleeping for about 12 hours before work tomorrow. wouldn't luck have it any other way, i woke up at midnight and stayed up all night pondering the strangest of thoughts. i'm captivated by stains on my ceiling, lost in my own adoration for how trees look at night and comfortable with the silence they bring. this was to be my cycle completing rest of the work/play week which lately has been more play than anything. and i'm here awake and conscious of my thoughts, this can be a dangerous thing.

no human is free. we are all confined to something. some are confined to the future and some are confined to a past they cant deny. there are times when i try to forget about beautiful things i've seen and experienced and i always stop myself from the compromise of any memory at all. you cannot write a story and tear pages from your notes. i'm not guilty of anything youre not guilty of, only frightened by beauty and trying to find a way to balance a cup that overflows. sometimes i think the world is so curiously beautiful that its a shame more people don't check it out. just like lyrics to a song can become an instrument so too can the sounds of nature and the outlines of dark trees at night shape whatever story it is that we are writing.

i've asked questions to the universe that have never been answered. i want to know if it is better to inspire or to be inspired. i want to know why the soft barefeet of red and orange dance on my soul and make my body shiver. blue and green take to my dreams, underwater, where the resolution of aquatic dream-land challenges the beauty of waking life. i still dream underwater.

you have not lived until you've felt your face sweat. it doesn't do this often, it is the result of intensity. you have challenged life. dancing and climbing are the opposites of dying. sweat of humans mixes like chemicals; you haven't lived until you've rested your sweaty face on someone's stomach. sleep-lines on your face mean you are still dreaming.

i think the trees outside my window are shivering tonight. their cold hands make that sound of fingertips rubbing together. just listening to them i'm getting sleepy. i'll sleep on my back tonight.. i had this thing i would do when i was younger and had trouble sleeping.. i would lay perfectly still on my back with my eyes closed and i'd scan my body from my toes all the way to the top of my head. i'd watch my body fall asleep and keep my soul awake just long enough to marvel in the beauty of being lucid inside of an unconscious human shell. i'll listen to the trees.. they will be the last thing i remember of today. blue and green will take me away and hold me like the warm arm of a human being into a land far away from waking reality.

anxo and normal

when i was younger (i can say that now) i had this strange inflated sense of emotionless-ness when it came to saying goodbye to people. i could easily say goodbye to friends and family and not think twice about the next time i would see them. this is not because of a cold heart but out of necessity. before i left for the peace corps i knew that i had to put up walls around my emotions and prepare for the worst long before my departure or i would never make that jump. a few years and a few oceans of swims later this tactic seems to have worn off. i find myself getting very sad when people leave and now more than ever i miss people back home. i also miss people i have come to know in my travels in the past and i only wish that somehow i could thank them for all they have done for me.



i had to say goodbye to another good friend a few days ago. we stayed up until 6am drinking vodka and exposing each other to the far off curiosities of the music from the countries of which we hail. i learned more about spain that night than i have from any other conversation in my life and really it sounds of a quite lovely place to visit. i'll go with no other person, i already have a good friend waiting for me there.



i'll not write more on the subject. i learned when i was in egypt that sadness is like something that will grow inside of you if you let it. it should be recognized, processed and cast away from you otherwise it will consume you. i only want it to be known that i miss and love my friends from all walks of life and such as the cells of my body are transient and ever changing so too i take with me the love my friends have bestowed upon me. i love you guys.

myneighborhank

Orion






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