you don’t have to knock
what other people do
to enjoy what you do.
you don’t have to dislike things
that are different from
what you like.
my very own child
shot me in the face
and we all had a good laugh
about that.
i’ve mentioned it before.
this child.
our affinity for guns.
just because some people think
“freedom” and “weapons”
are synonymous
doesn’t mean you have to
denigrate them.
i never have had a
child of my own but
my child of my own
shot me in the face and
we all laughed quite a lot
about that.
me, shot in the face
by my own child.
the guy next to me,
crashed his car while
jerking off to porn
on his phone,
thrown from his car,
died in the street
with his pants down.
we all laughed about that one.
even the ones who died at
ninety five years old,
with their brain still
braining and
their body still bodying,
we laughed quite a bit about
those, too.
it’s not the dying
that’s the funny part,
it’s that we think
dying is dying
in the first place.
or, we think death
is the final finality,
and not just one
of many endings.
on the beach where i was walking
at low tide, the rocks
made it kind of hard to
keep my footing
so i slipped
and slopped along
until i decided to just
slow down.
i took a wide angle
away from the tree line
and out further towards
ocean’s edge.
tide was slack and i had plenty
of time and plenty
of beach.
the sun was out
so of course so were
the people.
gobs of people.
most of them with dogs.
just because some people
like to own an animal
and tote it around
and carry its shit in a bag
or better yet
let it shit wherever it wants
and just leave it there,
doesn’t mean you need to
mock them.
just because someone
likes something
you don’t like
doesn’t mean you
can’t keep right on liking
what you like.
on the beach i walked slowly
so i didn’t stumble on the rocks
and it felt good to walk slowly
and not stumble on the rocks
and i didn’t have anywhere
i needed to be for
more than twenty four hours,
no where i
needed to be for
twenty eight hours,
so i took a wide angle
and angled slowly away from
the sticky gob of people
that were closer to the tree line.
some people like to
collect rocks
and some people like to
collect children
and some people like to
collect animals.
most people like to
collect money,
in one way
or another.
even the air
we autonomically bring into
our body is a resource.
even though some people
collect resources
in a way that you
don’t quite like,
even though some people
collect in amounts that you find
off-putting,
doesn’t mean you too aren’t really just
a collector of resources.
and that too is something that
we will all
eventually
just sit around
and laugh about.
when we are at
an end
and waiting again for
another beginning.
kind of like slack tide.
where we take our time
so we don’t stumble
and it feels good.
it feels good.
we laugh
when we stumble.
and it feels good.
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