1. They said go to the river go to the desert go to the mountain to find Him
but He wasn’t there.

I stood in cathedrals of Europe with Newton and Darwin in Westminster Abbey
and saw the great obelisk and felt alive at the Place de la Concorde
where they lopped off the head of a king and royalty rued the rabble
but He wasn’t there.  

They say Akhenaten worshipped only one god, a Sun god
and all of Egypt changed and cursed his name
and the tomb of his son god Tutankhamen
wasn’t found for three thousand years
death treasure lost to dust and thieves.  

And the Mahābhārata speaks of flying chariots, Vimāna
fighting great battles in the sky while Zeus dwelled on mountaintops
and Elijah like pagan Helios who rode the sun
ascended on his flying chariot and appeared with Moses at the transfiguration of Christ
a son God who shone like the sun.  

At the bottom of the world in a hospital with homeless men
who wanted to be safe and clean He wasn’t there
At the top of the world I listened to the wind and my heart
and all I heard was the silence and the beating.  

2. They said read the holy scriptures but He wasn’t there
I was baptized and learned of hair suits and honey in a cave
the shroud and the scrolls but nothing changed me
I was in the choir when they preached to the choir
and raised my hands to heaven but I mostly felt alone.  

I read Freud and Jung and maybe he’s my Shadow
or maybe He’s on the couch describing his dream
or maybe He’s my children
I don’t notice the hero now as much as the hero’s Father
an old man like me the hairy old bastard full of rage.

I haven’t been on a hajj – a pilgrimage – but don’t we all come from pilgrims
where is my Mecca my monolith on the Moon?
Here’s what I’ve learned
the light the dark the mother the monster
Buddha Krishna Satan Jesus 
is you.

“’plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,’ right? My French sucks, but I will always remember you as the prettiest girl in Europe… and I remember the night when little Dave got beat up on the bus, and he yelled up at your window, and then we went to the hospital with him because he shouldn’t have gone alone, and it sounded like maybe someone died in the other room, and Dave held your hand, and we were all a bit scared. And your friend from Manchester might have been right, that you were a bit too good for me, but she was biased, and I loved you then, I even came and slept on the floor in your room just to be near you, I was far from home after all… so yeah I remember those days, and I’ll probably never see you again. And I probably never said thank you, for loving me (at least a little bit) for those nine months in Wales. I’m so glad that your family looks happy, and one time your Dad made me a ham and cheese sandwich, and he put butter on it and I thought, how strange, but I ate it anyway, and it was actually pretty good, all things considered. ❤️”

Late Summer, 2008: Everything I owned in a Toyota Corolla and drove across country to California with my girlfriend at the time, partly because I owed her $1000, but we wouldn’t break up until Thanksgiving so that it wouldn’t be weird. What I learned: things are not always what you think they are. I rented a room from a woman who I think had had a brain injury, and one time she pulled out her breast to show me the scar from her surgery… and she liked to use the phrase “subby boy” in a joking way in the context of cajoling me to do chores, which was confusing, having never heard that term, and having never considered combining housework and kink. And it was really cold at Ruth’s house in Fall and Winter (in California!), kinda like the supervisor of my UCLA research fellowship was a cold empty prick… and realizing later, as I visited his BIG FANCY HOUSE in the hills, that he was divorced from a former student, who was writing a book about narcissists (hello!)… and I heard that one time, he tried to kiss one of his female graduate students (who was really beautiful, I met her later) at a work party– and some Korean women really are unbelievably beautiful, but I guess that’s true of all types of women — but she sort of publicly rebuked him, I wasn’t there. Or like when I emailed my supervisor’s supervisor about a year later and said, “hey do you have anything I could do for work, because I have a family situation?” — which was true, but not very sophisticated, and he didn’t call me back, probably having heard it aaaaaalll before. But people are always more than one thing: genius, idiot, heart-breaker, creep, that’s like when Harrison Ford fought with Ridley Scott while making Bladerunner, but for my money, that’s a great movie. Maybe you gotta break a few eggs to make a beautiful omelet, or a beautiful family… and that’s another thing: in the Midwest, where I was raised, you ask for a “Denver” omelet if you like ham and green peppers, but in Los Angeles, you have to ask for a “Western” omelet to get the SAME THING! Dude, now I have to know some geography to order breakfast? I mean, come on, breakfast should be the easy part. But — should it be? Maybe not on La Cienega Boulevard, or Hollywood, or Santa Monica, on the Pier, which stinks out at the end, where people fish. And something else I learned: the thing about mental illness is, sometimes you always feel alone.