Sweating in the middle of a hot June afternoon, he cut through the sprawling concrete jungle with swagger and the playful strong stride of an old college athlete that still knew how to kick up some dust in a pair of kicks when he had some steam to blow off. He usually liked to get out and hit the road running in the morning before the summer sun planted white-hot feverish mirages across the roads, but he'd hit a hiccup early. He'd gotten caught up in returning emails, and the climactic hair-raising chase of keeping a flaky freelance client honest on a fulfilling a paycheck that was coming up on 3 weeks late. Rent was due the next day. So, one aggressive email with a CAPS LOCK themed subject line and an illustrative breakdown of what kind of tarnished reputation said freelance client could hope for later, he was a freshly relieved man waiting on an expedited direct deposit. The money was set to hit his account later in the afternoon. Hell, what started as a bleary-eyed morning of sweating rent with a cold cup of 3-day old coffee over a sour cigarette stub, in a lonesome apartment to the terrible chorus of a thousand leaf blowers outside his apartment had evolved into a day he didn't feel the pressing need to drown in some, any kind of alcohol. Shit man, he'd pivoted off that welcomed response from his terrible freelance client that gave him just enough pennies to pinch together to clear another rent payment; and he'd actually got back outside to get a run in.

This run wasn't like the others. The day was on fire. The roads bubbling. The birdsong of Spring replaced by the pitched cries of waterstarved summer birds just desperate for a cold dip in a belly of cold blue water somewhere. He was coming up on 7 miles and his legs were starting to give. Those strides, once youthful, sure, and sturdy were replaced by the strained stumble of fatigue taking the reins. He remembered he hadn't eaten. Ha! Running off caffeine and nicotine and delrious euphoria in the middle of that blinding summer heat. He could hardly make out the scene rolling into view, as he ran on. Yellow and red and green and silver cars, busses, roaring by him in bright and shiny blurs. He'd seen a few people, but otherwise it was one of those afternoons where you found the city quiet and the folk huddled in the shade, or the air-conditioned comfort of a bar, café, restaurant. He could picture that glass of water slide across the bar. Ice cubes floating at the top of the glass, leaning against one another, embracing in hugs of icy comfort. The clink of another fresh glass poured. The satisfied sighs and relaxed shoulders of another couple customers closing their eyes in pleasure as they felt the cool rush of ice water running down their throat and into their bellies. His mouth was as dry as the road melting the soles of his shoes. But he kept pushing forward. He had a strange fixation with testing the outer limits of his willpower, finding his Wall, and breaking on through to the other side to see what that shit felt like. The Wall he found on these runs sure as hell beat the one he'd left behind.

Yes, in the past he'd chased a different kind of wall. This wall shows up sometime around 2am after a long night of drinking when you can't see straight, but maybe you're not done feeding the jukebox of your stubborn soul another damn drink, and the cigarettes that kept you moving with quick rushes of nicotine-infused stimulation have offered all they have to give. Need something stronger. If only there was a way. He found his way with the powder. Nights of practicing his White Powder Worship behind locked bathroom stall doors, sniffing, snorting, and flying around bars, living rooms, into the piercing glare of a sore 5am sunrise with blow bleeding through his crazed pores...and he found that damn wall. But he flew right over it. He cheated it. Never broke through it. Just got high enough to get his ass over the wall without having to pay for the implications till later. He'd given himself over at points to temporary insanity. Something about the sleepless mania mixed with the potent cocktail of the drugs and enough liquor to send the liver crying for help, put him in an unfiltered headspace prone to a sense of invicibility when the paranoia wasn't screaming too loud from the back of his battered brain. Yes, so there was that wall, and a glimpse at his time playing the game at avoiding it. Eventually, he just got too tired. The recoveries took longer, and the time he spent in the cradle of a coked-out episode only left him with sore teeth, vague nausea, and an empty feeling that he was giving more of himself to the drugs and the booze than they were giving back to him. He decided to pivot, walk away from the powder that kept him out when the bars closed, and at home on his death bed for days after; and turned to the blank page, a bit of the bottle when the time was right, or nothing in the world was and he caved for alcohol's caress, for a night; and of course the running. Those runs gave him a chance to chase the wall, and challenge his own self-imposed limitations. He was always trying to beat himself, and this approach let him do it in a way that didn't leave scars on his mind, body, and soul. Well, sometimes with the body. So, there he was, tearing through a hot summer afternoon in his beat up kicks that were melting against the bubbling pavement, but with a silly half-mad smile on his face like he'd gotten caught up in a good mood.

And a good mood was rare for this guy. The best time to catch him in a good mood was when he'd given himself over to getting lost in the present moment. He'd shifted from finding this good mood in the lost space of a sore 5am sunrise when you're just feeling nothing but an animalistic urge to rail another line, now to the meditative bliss of endorphin-charged runs. And hell with people that say runs feel great. They're full of it. It's the aftermath that feels the great. Specifically their ability to quiet his rampant brain noise, and throw him in the present moment when he had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other, and of course; his case of madness for running toward the limitations, the walls he'd put on himself. On a run at least he could take a crack at peering into the depth of his soul's drive, and remember it, and get something back for the hard-earned effort. His time flying over the other wall never gave him anything back.

He maintained a strange suspicion about those runs, and maybe that's what kept him pushing through the one we started with today. He believed every time he finished the run, found his exhaustion, but did it all to the best of his ability he put a little light back in his soul. He'd done some damage in that chapter of hedonism. Told lies, shied away from accountability, flaked on friendships, and wasted time wandering through the world only thinking about what he could gain from others around him. He'd always assumed he was due for a bone-rattling confrontration with the Karma Collector when his time came; but it hadn't happened yet. So, in the meanwhile, he'd work away on leading a simple enough life of filling the page with words when they came, getting paid, making rent, reflecting and acting on what could help others, drinking when the drunk put wrinkly smiles not bitter tears in his eyes, and running his tired ass off into the hazy summer sunset of another restless day. He wasn't sure what Karma had in store for him, and what that past chapter had put into motion, but he'd at least try to put more of the good stuff, the small personal victories in the bank, before he had to pay his dues. Let's hope he catches the Karma Collector in the middle of one of those good moods too.

I used to flip a coin every weekend with a trembling hand holding a shaky key and a baggie of blow behind a locked bathroom stall door. There I drowned out the sounds of paranoia and self loathing screaming off the walls in a symphony of hidden quiet panic, with just one more bump to not feel any more. Then the drugs faded. The lights dimmed. Tabs closed. Grand plans for after hour activities made in the mad haste of infinite possibilities fueled by feeling invincible and freed from the shackles of fear, gave way to just that. Only fear. And another sore 5am sunrise of bone rattling loneliness and nothing followed through on. Fear led me down that road of fleeting invincibility, and fear brought me back to recognizing that delusional trip was speeded fast toward a dead end with a flatline.

Charles Bukowski and I are stumbling into one of those dark lit, cigarette-stained dive bars where the beautiful and damned and ugly go to raise a glass to giving up on everything. One man with his face hidden by a black ballcap sits at the end of the bar, leaning against death, staring into his tall cold and gold beer like he might find peace of mind at the bottom of the round, when he's really just watering the dark seed of his own insanity. Willing himself into believing it will work out any different than half-baked fever dreams hatched up with some liquid courage that dry up under the bleak hungover sunrise of another day back on the grind, chasing a paycheck at half speed. A young gone woman with sad blue eyes that could drown you if you look into 'em too long without a lifesaver spelled out as a-l-c-o-h-o-l, dances and moans against the bar's dusty jukebox. She put on the Rolling Stones, and they're deep into singing about how you can't always get what you want. Nope, you can't. But you can wash up here, carried in on the Tide of the Disillusioned, and get drunk enough to learn it doesn't matter, or even worse, believe it does and is within reach.

Bukowski growls and barks at the tall, bearded, bartender who has long black hair that falls down to his shoulders and looks like he's some tormented Messiah of the Underworld. This is our underworld, our chosen hell. It's nice, no ventilation, halitosis in the air that could be another lost soul kicking the bucket behind the locked bathroom stall door cause the powder they railed had a little something more they never saw coming. Oh well, it's all gone to hell. Pull up a seat and grab a whiskey! Yes, yes, here we are. Bukowski and I found decent enough company in each other while we sit at our stools and squint our eyes, and curse the heavens. The glow of the beer under the sun escaping through the window is heaven enough for us. He's really on one now. He's ordered his sixth green bottle of Heineken. We've been here for 30 minutes. I don't know where he finds the room. His eyes are almost closed, while his blinks might be drunken naps, before he wakes himself up to take another sip. I'm clenching my barstool with a white-knuckled grip, falling off the face of the earth, and drinking with a reckless bloodthirsty abandon like enough whiskey might make me forget about how fucked up we are. Don't close your eyes now, or the spins will kickstart. Bukowski's going on about the music of the crowd, how people make him sick, and the pity he feels for those folk that never go truly crazy, and what terrible lives they must lead as a result. You know, the ones who don't just wake up, but jump out of bed, with a healthy pink glow of well rested vitality painted on their faces, no hangovers, shakes, dark hedonistic cravings like another bump off the key when nobody's looking, just an empty white sandy beach mind of complacency. To show up on time with a hot, steaming coffee -- room for almondmilk -- and a full tank of gas with a paycheck looming on the horizon is enough for them. Maybe they invest, diversify their portfolio, save for decades later, smile stubbornly through quarterly meetings, meet friends for a reasonable sole cocktail once every few weeks when they really cut loose, and all the while get caught up in the blur of riding down a straight-edged life never given over to the jagged, jarring tumbles off the cliff of insanity.

Bukowski and I have taken a tumble or two. He managed to find insanity and forge his art, his word, the way, as the flames danced around him, and his insides shriveled up, and he shot blood from every hole in his body uncontrollably. The doctors told him he could never drink again in that time, and the first thing he did when he got out, was to grab a sixer. And he's never stopped. And along the way he's lit up the blank page with words of raw and bloody truth about the darker sides of life that anyone would've crossed the street to get away from. I look over at him, and he's silently weeping. Tears falling slow down his face. He could be the happiest or saddest monster alive. I grab the bartender's attention, and before I can order up another round, he's grabbed a bottle of whiskey off the shelf, opened it, and left it in front of us. He's either trying to kill us faster or numb the pain as we freefall from sanity once more...

A heart and soul are just two halves that make us whole. We don’t know who we are until we’re able to listen to both, and bring 'em together. They play off each other. Then suddenly, the soul becomes aroused and the heart beats harder. It’s a mad soul kick somewhere deeper in your gut than you can point out to a doctor or a worried friend or a concerned parent. Ain’t no antacid around for this burn. One moment you can be sitting, maybe watching a pretty sunset somewhere nice, and a warm breeze kisses your face, and the sky’s reddening, and the birdsong of Spring’s deafening, and you’re holding the soft tender hand of the one you love.

In that moment you realize it’s as good and as bad as it’s ever going to get. It’s good cause you finally found the one and the pretty picture to share it with. It’s bad cause you only have so much time now to fill the album of this shared life together. You silently commit to robbing as many pictures of life’s finest and messiest and crazed moments with this individual as you can. Damn. It’s all enough beauty to start crying over, so you do. You taste the salt of your tears and wonder if that’s just what a weeping soul tastes like. You continue to cry hard, as your head starts to hurt, and you cry into each other as you realize that your heart’s now beating outside your chest in her lap, and hers in yours. You’re alive and more terrified of death and living in a moving picture without this person, than you could’ve imagined. Your soul is aroused, on fire even, and your heart’s playing to the beautiful damned tune of Love’s Insanity. We all know how the game goes, and it ends the same time, every time: find the person we want to spend the rest of our lives with. Consciously commit ourselves to them, as we make more room in the houses of our souls. Leave parts of us behind, to make room for what these special individuals will bring into ours. It’s a painful fucking act, but it’s LIFE and it’s LOVE and it’s daring to FEEL what our souls have to say when you give ’em a good damn reason to get aroused. Here’s to hearts and souls and what makes us whole.

Hell, I'll whisper in written words and you'll read it, cause I ain't done listening to what silence has to say. It goes like this.

In an instant, the sun stopped shining and the birds of Spring stopped chirping and the wind stopped whispering and the musical thrum of souls in movement stopped playing. Everyone's gone or I'm just somewhere else.

Everything could've fallen apart or everything could've been nothing to begin with. I could've been 25, or never alive. Maybe one-uh those long-winded dreams you wake up from feelin like you done lived a quarter life's worth-uh memories.

And when this dream ended and my eyes opened I woke in the ocean of Reality, to see it as it was, and not as I imagined.

It's a cold, black walled empty space of nothin. And from that nothing emanates an echo. I listen hard for the echo of nothin, and then I hear the noise we're all too busy living and dreaming over.

Silence.

Silence has the most to teach, if we give it a chance to be heard. I'll be listening for a while.