Come, come, whoever you are.

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn’t matter.

Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, even if you have broken your vow

a hundred times.

Come, yet again, come, come.

The House of the Goddess Envy

She groaned aloud and sighed for that bright presence.
Pale, skinny, squint-eyed, mean, her teeth are red
With rust, her breast is green with gall, her tongue
Suffused with poison, and she never laughs
Except when watching pain; she never sleeps,
Too troubled by anxiety; if men
Succeed, she fails; consumes, and is consumed,
Herself her punishment.

If I am between morning and night

                             I am not in any other space.

If for a fraction of an instant I have seen extinction,

                             I am free of the coils of the mortal world.

I am free of words.

I am free of silence.

I am free of the difference between you and me.

I am free of the longing to be free.

I am free of nothing.

The blank page does not require the written word.

This is what it looks like when you take all of your hope and you spit it in an oil drum.
—-

I got my shoelace caught in the hinges of your cot, and I think that it was an omen of all bad things to come between us.
—-
My bruises have been growing like irises. Oh, my flower garden neck - Van Gogh would be so impressed.

He would see faces in movies, on TV, in magazines and in books. He thought that some of these faces might be right for him and that through the years, by keeping an ideal facial structure fixed in his mind, or somewhere in the back of his mind, that he might by force of will cause his face to approach those of his ideal. The change would be very subtle. It might take ten years or so. Gradually his face would change it’s shape. A more hook nose. Wider, thinner lips. Beady eyes. A larger forehead.

He imagined that this was an ability he shared with most other people. They had also molded their faces according to some ideal. Maybe they imagined their new face would better suit their personality. Or maybe they imagined that their personality would be forced to change to fit the new appearance. This is why first impressions are often correct.

Although some people might have made mistakes. They may have arrived at an appearance that bears no relationship to them. They may have picked an ideal appearance based on some childish whim or momentary impulse.
Some have gotten half way there and then changed their minds. He wonders if he too might have made a similar mistake.