We see more of ourselves in others than we see who they are. What we despise in others is what we despise that we see in ourselves that we cannot embrace. Wrestle the evils and see that within judgment is discernment, within discernment is caution and within caution is fear. You are afraid and so am I. What quiets your fears? That is what quiets mine. It’s not enough to seek to escape our own suffering. We will escape it by learning how to escape others suffering, do you see?

I see and when I see I must look for kindness and forgiveness. Instead, what makes its image in the mirror? Silver reflections give way to sets of self-aware waves and I see a young, dry landscape ready to burst into flames. There is a patch of yellowing grass that rustles in the breeze below both balconies of this home overlooking a dense forest of trees who seem not to know the way that brought them to this place. The paper grass speaks to me of impending flames and irresponsibility. So I clean my bong with a match stick and throw it in. 

Faith. Religion. Money. Love. Beauty. The sun eats away the skin of the maggots as they strive to eat every bit of oxygen in the air. In youth the power of the earth gives us jubilance but in age it reveals the scars that have laid underneath filters on our social media screens. You cannot hide from the humility of the weather that takes away everything it gives. We are eating off plastic and paper to save water on a planet that has more than enough to occupy an entire solar system. Here we are in the mist of a planetary ballet, fog machines and laser beams but what have we done? Filled our lungs with carbon. Exhale. 

The highways are streams; the cautious, stones being smoothed by the raging movement of those who are carried with the water. But these are dry lands. These streets sparkle star dust. Tumbleweed personalities roll through with smiles as I thrust a herring into their hand. 

Eggy. Ovular personalities of superiority. Guarded children fenced in the den become feral posters of territory. I am angry because I cannot find fault in this place; only in the way I perceive can error be margined. Receding I know what they say:

This is our home. 

So my ostrich legs fold me back away into a desert of one track thought. 

“Exist. 

Let them live and perhaps you, too, shall learn to live. Oh sagittarius, maker of hearts and haver of homes, you wandering traveller, carry a piece of each of them in your chest and sprinkle their dust across the earth, then others, too, may learn to live. Listen to the roll of a mid-spring Los Angeles heart and see that its timbre is made from the fell of a thousand suns beating down on shining teeth waiting to meet your gaze in smile.”

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The song at the top was recorded in Calabasas, CA; just north of Los Angeles. The recording took place at a friends studio using Logic Pro X, Manley Dynamic Microphone, Roland SP-404 SX, Kontakt 5 and Massive. The hook/bridge is sung by myself and Keaton separating two verses: one by Eli and one by me. The song did not take all that long to create, probably somewhere around eight hours. We were in Calabasas for only three or four days and left with one complete song and a skeleton.