crossed eyes

in Now my mind wanders into Else

clung to unrealities remembered,

a fractured narcissist dialogue

unending questions & unquestioned sureness

my ego died to wear a new face–

convoluted truths for known comfort,

he makes jaded sense of 

Else     is     &  what

I am everything I’ve learned is

free from scrutiny in

space I find myself

obsessed with probable partial

perceptions in a cesspool 

of severed personality

I like myself when

certain self seems liked,

I’ve forgotten who 

belongs where

is I a fate touched

by the transcendent,

am I fighting what’s

predetermined or will

struggle always be?

I grasp for definition

to encapsulate the ever-changing–

language is a broken mirror

I know 

reject        and 

am       this thing

      that I’m 

convinced

             can’t be

 accepted

my chest tightens 

heavy in remembrance

I dwell often on not

the Ego fabricated Ego

to be liked by You

as separate truth

where am I?

will you like who I am not?

0r is this really I–

am I I or he as I

who holds the answer

who holds the knife

for ruptured truth

A monk, a conspiracy theorist and a frat guy walk into a bar. 

Of course, not all at once… I cannot recall who arrived first and in any sense, it is unimportant. We will begin in the moment, where they share the space.

The monk sat in the corner of the bar with his back to the door. It was as though a smile was glued to his face. He held a double shot of rum in his hand draped with a maroon robe and spoke little. He was here often at this bar and lets explain the space here:

The bar was in a strip mall, housing ceilings found in minimally funded public schools and looney bins. The walls were a dingy white, cluttered with glowing advertisements of vices and held no windows. There were uncomfortable beige chairs surrounding a 3 sided square of mahogany with expected bottles behind it, an alcoholic bar-man and tap local beers before him. Beside the bar was one pool table where five hispanic men and a pregnant mother stood around and played interchangeably. 

The conspiracy theorist was alone in a booth that faced the door. He was especially interested in the monk but one could not tell by his dark sunglasses covering some of his pimpled flesh and grim bags carrying his eyes. His clothes were disheveled and dark, attracting attention with what attention he sought not to attract. 

The conspirator had his eyes mostly glaring at the thing the monk meditated on: a blonde woman who kept reaching over the center of the bar to convince the bar-man to take another shot. Beside the woman stood the skeptic, frat guy. He gawked at the bar-man like he might lunge over the mahogany and smash his face through, though it was rather, a fragile disposition implying something else. The frat guy had a mustache he had forced a pledge to dye brown, birkenstocks, a polo with the emblem of the local college and his favorite pair of pants that made his butt look good. He drank local beer and refrained from bitter-induced-gagging. He would not allow himself to have his usual vodka tonight, not after he pissed the woman’s bed last weekend. 

The skeptic felt he had some power over the woman through his routine rumpings on the weekends and his face grew with involuntary reddening with each cackle the bar-man evoked from the woman. The man-child pulled the woman to a corner of the poorly lit bar and said words with emphatic facial expressions until she grabbed her coat and left. The frat guy sat himself down at the bar and sighed, gestured with his finger to the bar man and drank with dainty self-assurance. 

The monk got up, moved gracefully to the pool table and placed a pink lotus flower beside the quarters before sitting down. The conspiracy theorist moved himself to the bar, asked for a club soda and after over-thinking the matter, sat himself between the man-child and awakened. The Frat guy had his phone out and scrolled through Tinder like it was a finger exercise before talking to no one in particular:

“What a night!”

The conspiracy theorist shrugged and drank soberly. There was a World Series baseball game on one TV, an NBA game on another, NFL Monday night football behind the Monk and NHL on another.

“It’s the fucking Roman Circus.” The conspiracy theorist said, looking blankly in front of him.

“What the hell are you yapping about over there pimples,” said the frat guy. 

“They keep us distracted with this bullshit so we don’t have time to worry about the blatant corruption of the government.”

“Huh?”

“In ancient Rome, they created the circus to distract the people from the collapsing economy or failing military.” the conspiracy theorist said with indifference. “Our government does it better than any.” 

A few of the hispanics moved themselves to the foot of the bar, ordered a pitcher of beer, told the monk that the pool table was his and sat themselves in a booth by the door. 

“I got 500 riding on the Dodgers. Finding out what politicians are fucking kids and aren’t is not my particular care right now.” The frat guy said.

“You're the problem.”

“Like hell.”

“Why do you think they have every major league sport happening a month from the election cycle?”

“Bar tender grab me a fucking Banquet will ya,” the frat guy said.

“Ain’t got any.”

“Fine, then just grab me three shots, one for the nut and one for the quiet fella over there.” the frat guy said, motioning his finger around in the air. 

The bar-man grabbed his things and did what one did with a shot glass and vodka. The monk moved closer to bickering two. 

“I don’t drink poison." the conspiracy theorist said. “They want you–”

The frat guy cut him off, “just shut the hell up and drink.”

The shots were there on the table before the three. The monk took his shot with no facial reaction except a wider smile. The paranoid exchanged a long childish nuh-uh and uh-huh’s with the man child and inevitably the frat guy took both shots before screeching like a primitive man in the small space. 

“Want to play 9-ball?” The monk asked the two. 

“I only shoot if I gamble.” The frat guy said, still wincing and slugging water down his throat.

“How much?”

“I thought you people didn’t gamble; hell, or drink.”

“We invited them both.” The monk said smiling.

The two agreed on a number and began to play with the lotus still sitting on the table. The conspiracy theorist watched from a distance and with unusual enjoyment, in fact, he did not want to allow himself the joy. The Monk shot did not miss a ball the first game and the frat guy screamed for a rematch which came to be.

“Double or nothing, I have to wake up early for work.” 

“The future is a dream; the past a fiction.” the monk said, as he racked the balls.

The frat guy laughed and called the monk a drunk and the night, “the strangest fucking thing.” The conspiracy theorist asked the monk why he drank and the monk answered: “Without a tether, I will fly away. I vowed to awaken all beings in this life and partake in the worldly to connect with being. I am not habit, I am all things." Before breaking, the monk said, “Why do you have a gun hiding under your shirt?” 

The frat guy shouted with a ballyhoo of foul mouthed language and questions that grabbed the attention of the bar before the conspirator faintly said: “It was considered a duty for a citizen to own a gun for the sake of the Second Amendment. As long as citizens own guns, the government could never become oppressive.” 

This statement brought no assurance to the moment, the monk was no longer smiling and gestured to the fluster- faced frat guy to shoot. 

“Look, there are people who have been trying to kill me for years, say I’m a terrorist–”

“Monk, you keep the money. I am getting away from this nut.” the frat guy said.

“You can’t leave now, not after they saw you talking to me. I saw their van outside and they are going to run in at any moment.”

The frat guy called his bluff, though he was filled with terror and got himself more liquor from the bar. 

“The great teachers do not advocate to fight evil because we are on the side of peace. If one is involved with defending, attacking– his action is bound by dualism.”

“It’s too late.” The conspiracy theorist said as he clutched the gun sticking out of his underwear.

The open bar door was bashed in with a battering ram and twelve men dressed in all black and ski-masks came in waving shotguns and assault rifles, screaming with little sense. The conspiracy theorist, with his face to the wall, positioned his gun to the men and hit nothing except for the walls. The conspiracy theorist ran into the bathroom while the men were distracted with the patrons closest to the door and the frat guy had his hands to his head on the bar. The monk moved himself to where the men were and one man grabbed his robes, and slammed the monk into the wall, without further reasoning. The men in all black grabbed the pregnant woman and shoved her to the ground, began screaming and beating the four men that were with her. They put the five men in hand-cuffs after beating them senselessly, kicked the monk in the chest and then carried the hispanics out into the night. 

The conspiracy theorist threw his gun in the trash of the bathroom and crouched with his head in his lap and tears in his eyes. One of the men came back into the bar and surveyed the bar-man, frat guy, and monk before approaching the man in the bathroom crouched beside the wall. 

“Did you see the immigrant with the gun sir? Was the immigrant one of the five that we grabbed?”

The conspiracy theorist looked up and did not have the words to respond. The fat man wearing a ski-mask looked around again before putting his arm on the crying pimple faced man’s shoulder. 

“It is ok son, I’m sure you’re a little shaken up. we will find them and bring them back to where they belong. I’m sure it was the woman who shot at us, we saw the gun hiding under her shirt.”

The fat man moved away from him and came to face the bloody monk getting up from the ground. 

“You’re papers sir.”

“I own nothing.”

The fat man put hand cuffs around the monk and was met with a smile that looked glued to his bloody face. He was sickened, though one could not tell from his face being covered. He pushed the monk in front of him, grabbed out his wallet and put nine dollars on the bar table before leaving. The lotus flower was gone from the table. 

“Gentleman, your next one is me. I hope these people don’t cause you any more trouble tonight.”