10/30/25
Article for the Stevens Student Resistance
OK, here’s my resistance. It’s past midnight, I’m slightly delirious, I burned all my notebooks so now I have to type. I’m listening to Tibetan bowls through my headphones thinking about how similar it sounds when I plug my ears with my thumbs and my eyes with my pinkies and listen with intention. If you caught my thesis presentation, you’ll remember those hidden fluctuations? I want to say it outright: there’s a real Sound. But don’t trust me just yet, I’m still in recovery. Now:
Every once in a while a cosmic bowl is struck and I collapse under a mysterious illness. I say mysterious because despite all its patterns I still haven’t quite breached an understanding, & I say cosmic because if one thing is certain this exhibition is astral in nature. I think it’s every time I break a promise… anyways, I’m currently trying to embrace my mandated mouth-breathing and shake off the mental-fist-shaking (you know how it is) cuz I know this mystery usually leads to something good. The first time was pivotal, let me tell you. It was early on in 2024 I think, I shook under the merciless weight of exhaustion could barely scrape my feet up 6th street to poetry class (where I was just coming off a real good run called hippie poems, I called myself a hippie then) OK: This Is Definitely The End I thought. Something out there clicked when I missed the candle burning ceremony and Lauren must’ve burned one in my name because that night, I was looking at my phone and saw a real life shredded body and I think lost my breath for just enough to slip into something or somewhere else… and there I was, Light. I won’t describe it here because I have elsewhere but for quick reference, I saw a monkey, Eternal Friend’s guidance, myself as Guru & Disciple, a journalist in Boston, and Lauren and I, giggling in some ethereal spaciousness… The end credits rolled, and all that. That’s when I decided to engage in Resistance. I did what I could for a while.
The second time I got sick was interweaved with the first - it was more like a wave (actually, it was one full moon). I was buzzing around town and someone called me a terrorist for my keffiyeh. Yeah, I said, Go ‘head and define me. I’m real scary. I entered the library and for the first time had eyes on me like I knew how to make it all better. It was a big group, and we were just starting out so introductions were important, plans had to be set. I was still buzzing from my delirium (wonderin’ if anyone could see me levitating) and somewhere back in my mind was absolutely downright terrified. But for the most part, I was totally cool, knowing my Friend would guide me. I opened my mouth to speak and completely froze. The Light all poured outta me and I was a moist empty cave - or I was the bat in it, and I got scared and hid. Could anyone see me crash to the floor? I had to dismantle the responsibility ASAP, so I started writing and writing and I wrote 40 something pages about the endowment.
My Friend capital F fled so I can see the reality of blazing Life & Death just as intended: appalled. Yea, it was a real fire, and wouldn’t ya know, that one did actual real tangible GOOD cause they gave me a lot of money that I didn’t think I deserved so I passed it along to DWB. I kinda feel bad for skipping the ceremony. You wouldn’t know it, but later on I was outside the gates of Columbia and I met a young guy wandering around looking lost and he asked me if I supported violent resistance; me with my peace signs, the zealot cried, you’re killing us, you’re killing us all! Honestly, all I could hear him saying was, do you love me? So I looked deep into him and put on my best face and said, look it depends, do you love me? Later I was with a jail support group waiting for the NYU kids to get out and I started talking to one of the cops, like, one of them individually, you know how they line up with arms linked to try and look permanent or something? I was lookin’ for a crack and I felt witty so I said, long day huh? Cop looked at me and nodded. After a moment, hesitating, he blurted out, well, yeah. A small chuckle. And it's gonna get even longer. I gotta pick up my wife from the airport... the whole wall tumbles. And much earlier, at the memorial for Refaat Alareer, I read his poem If I Must Die You Must Live To Tell My Story to the hundreds of mourners gathered at WSP, in a light drizzle which contained a deafening silence. That’s the last time I cried for poetry.
The bowl is struck again, I’m unraveling messy vibration. Passing images of my Friend, a hazy light that can’t be contained. It’s been a while… Now, I work a regular job and do regular things. I even wear regular clothes, like blue jeans and a zip-up hoodie. I go outside every morning and plant my feet in wet grass and gaze up at the columns of sky. Night time I hie homeward within. It’s 1:54am and my thoughts are pouring out just as they pour in: allow me to disregard the strain of conception. There’s a regular at the coffee shop who told me he bought Dylan’s Highway 61 the day it came out. I saw him again today, so I put on some Dylan and said, you’re real lucky to have a voice like that growing up. He said, little quiet old guy, oh yeah, I would run to the store when a new Dylan album came out. I was at Berkeley, we did sit-ins for Vietnam and I met Joan Baez, and I got into a lotta trouble with the FBI. Damn near close to death a couple times, putting my body on the line, you know? Got drafted, fled to Canada. Small chuckle. Highway 61 really brings me back. I closed the shop and stayed up all night thinking. Here we are:
I did not get drafted nor did I flee to Canada. I’m still left trying to decipher the nature of my illness and how to make it all better. I’m looking at those hopeful, expecting eyes around the long table in the library… I keep hearing my alarm going off from another room, the one set for 5 hours and 44 minutes from now. I see those eyes looking at me around the table, but I fled and now I’m consigned to puzzling out dreams and history. But don’t worry, I am actively seeking my place in the world, as are you. I may not be at the table but you at the table are gonna do some real good. Let all my mistakes be stepping stones, we’ve already come quite a long way. You’re up now! Take it beyond all of us.