What has happened? I feel warm again. Dumbfounded that I could want someone so fearlessly, so ferociously, so foolishly. I am The Fool again. For years it was such a treacherous endeavor, I've forgotten how to be new again. A voice tells me, "it's just like breathing, you already know how, just let go." There was a time when I was loving someone without letting go. It was a torturous way to go, and it only worked enough to leave me a junkie for it, always chasing the ringer that only comes the first time when you are still naive to someone's bad chemistry. But that's looking back and breathing life into an old m.o. And it was offered again. How could I return to the cave, put the chains back on, and gaze at the shadows on the wall as though they were real? It's been a long road and I'm not going back. And friends are not always who they say they are. The self-serving gash. People never love you as much as say they do when they want something. Love is love when it gives never when it takes.
I still have work to do before tomorrow, but I had to take a moment to write.

I let a friend down. Don't believe that you can't do something wrong just because you didn't mean to do it. Sounds simple, negligence is the same as choosing to do it. You can plead for clemency, and I did. But the simple fact remains that it didn't have to go the way that it did. I should have seen it coming. I wonder if it was vindictive? Can we have a piece of our mind that cons our consciousness into forgetting where we are long enough to tip over the tea cart? Well, in a word, yes we can, but at no time can we say that we didn't plan for it to happen. The simple fact remains that someone felt hurt because of something I failed to do. I prayed, and feel forgiven, and the friendship is intact because this time someone was more noble than I. For a time I carried the friendship, not succombing to anger and spite. I took a stand for happy lives. For a moment I failed to live up to that, and it cost someone

Temptation to let things go awry when they are going well. That is fear's subtle sister, chaos. Chaos let's you avoid risk, avoid things we fear. Love, if it is truly love can help a man overcome this only if his courage holds. I'll never forget an illustration of a man reaching to grasp a pearl from a oyster big enough to devour him. The caption read "risk surrounds everything worth having." In a self-help seminar, one of those organizations that runs a weekend program that is a hybrid between mind-fuck and rebirth, I declared "love and courage." Well, four years later.... that is being realized. I didn't picture it quite like this. I thought it would be easier, without tempting pitfalls. Someone is helping me, and someone is testing and tempting me. The temptors pulling strings, I wonder if you look deeply enough in someone's eyes whether you can see the temptor pulling the puppet strings tight for the right resonance and plucking a melodious discord to lead poor souls astray. Perdition indeed, no great saints or sinners left, merely lives frittered away in quiet boredom passing one moment to the next, where the greatest excitement is just enough chaos to derail hopes you might have had. The sun is coming up and I have a day to live in.