Fish Hooks and Ink Stains

I wander down dark roads a lot. Kind of like the way silk threaded roads wind their way back into the forest night. Birds chirping like farmhands singin' final tunes with the last chore of the day. Can't imagine a softer place to lay my head than in the lap of sweet memories like these.

            Just around the corner, as I near the first familiar bend, a hoot owl whispers narcotic sounds that draw me deeper into my solitude. When at a lonely tree stump I rest, I remember so clearly what first snagged me and lured me into its lair. 

            Familiar, yes. But even more venomous than before. A narcotic so strong it has wiped out my memory and led me back to the same place over and over again, until I'm frustrated and frenzied. I notice a stain on the tree stump where I sit. I had etched something there in ink. A warning. A symbol. Looks like "stay away."

            And yet... I am here. 

            A gloomy, mucky fog shrouds my legs now. I remember now, I'm living in the past. Everything here is dead. It smells dead. It looks dead. It reeks of death. And yet, I return.

            To whom should I blame for this journey? I have come empty handed, hoping for treasures that I never earned and will never earn if I keep following this same path. If I make it out of here alive, I will walk in another direction. I promise, God. 

            "I will stand in my truth and authenticity and follow the path of light... the present." 

            These words ring from my lip. I hear them come back to me in a moment of stillness. I have said this before. As I look down, I see etched beneath my ink words, a sun. Round and round it goes, following the same path each day. My words the same. My actions, even more the same.

            To whom shall I blame for this human response? Is it God or mammon? Wolves dressed in sheepskin or just mental illness?

            Fate fly away and let me bear the passion of the wind. I deserve the higher call of words unspoken and songs unwritten. If I should keep singing the words of others and writing over and over the past, should I not waste away in the shadows of death? 

             I fear I will. 

            Present—take me away into your stillness and leave me in your unrest forever.