For Us The Water is Concrete

I caught it early this time.

Hey - therapy works.

I told her she's my ayahuasca.

We both know she is.

Professional, but spiritual

I shed

Get cerebrally nude

I caught it early this time

That alone feels unreal.

The energy is here — fast, bright, almost holy. It's 1989 in the Valley, LA, I'm skating on my caballero dragon board down one of those epic hills, the place is called Granada Hills, big fucking hills, no helmet, no fear, just speed air gravity.

It's 1987 long beach new york we're born on this beach the storm is coming so we are the only ones in the water, the sky is cruel and violent — the rip tide seems impossible, but we lean in and catch another wave that tosses us the floor which feels like bricks, the pain is terrifying, the first panic of being alive with no air is a memory,

this is now familiar,

we're not numb and medicated,

just the opposite we feel everything,

the broken shells digging into the heels of our feet,

the seaweed choking my neck,

my friend launches his board spearing my balls

The sun it's shining through distorted I know it's there, but it was just dark skies, but how, it's impossible, accept the impossible or you're crazy, they will separate you, they will persecute you, they have done it to others.

The water is concrete.

There is no balance, only chaos. I hit the ramp, I'm airborne. I have no helmet. I actually hit my head. My brain rattles.

Did I break it? No it works. It always has. Strange thing it works well. IQ test high, but never believed. Strange genius mixed with unstable idiocy.

That familiar rush feels good. Too good. Ideas connect faster than I can write them. My body wants motion. My mind wants meaning. I want to fuck life to simultaneous orgasms, but never come until it's the last breath.

Everything feels important, vivid, alive. I get it all. It all joins. All dimensions. It has got me published in Rizzoli, read by Universal, made me heroically fearless with heights, elbow to elbow with gifted and famous, poor and destroyed in the gutter, nobility, artistic fury, indulging in insanity.

The same feeling has also taken one step too far and torched sacred friendships, projects that I gave blood, sweat, and tears for, love that was given to me almost unconditionally. But, there were conditions rightfully so. I always respected the conditions in my heart, but my mind.

Becomes a pattern. A loop.

And still — I recognize it this time as it happens.

That's something new.

I know, but usually admit it when the symbolic angel dust settles.

I know how good it feels and how dangerous it can be at the same time. I'm not pretending otherwise.

I ride the wave before the storm on purpose

and skate the hills with a deathwish.

I grabbed a guitar, a piece of wood, i couldn't play and strummed the guitar until my fingers bled on the audience. They said it was awesome. I was great. The high got higher. I was in my underwear and then nude in front of stranger photographers, then i became a photographer after listening to my uncle's stories and how to erase my body while meditating.

I meditate like a monk, chanting in japanese, tibetan, my own chants.

I fit in seamlessly and can be a rockstar, a model, an accountant, a suite host, a local legend, a new york character, a pornstar, a church boy, a brawler, a pacifist, an anarchist, a conformist

My uncle said just be Mike. But, I'm also Mikey, Michael, Stallion, Asshole, Stud, Baldie, Psycho, Manic Mike, Fucked up Dude, Always Winner, Big Loser, Hero, Destroyer, Human, Unbreakable soul

I love recklessly, passionately and without abandon. I firedance embodying the flame, both the beauty and eerie creepiness of walking the line of madness. I channel it, direct it, rather successfully at times and wildly negligent.

I've lived like this my whole life. Hippie heart, Roman Mosaic Mind, open nervous system, music in the head too loud, heart physically responds with tachycardia and afib. I'm always dying, but never accept death.

Medication burned me once — Zoloft, 2002, after 9/11, which I watched fall from the Brooklyn Waterfront. That energized me, but it was the mourning of the city that triggered me. The manic crying on my shoulders from a friend that lost a wife and became weird creep hitting on my cousin, I almost ended with a fist. The fist became a hug.

The world is often unhinged giving my brain permission to explode. Heaven and Hell at once. Adapt. Make art. Make music. Make. Descend into the downtown and brooklyn scene and let the debauchery consume me, become me.

I feel it as real.

A body, a mind, a history, a kid, a man, a friend, a dad others depend on.

Today isn't about stopping when i reach the edge of that los angeles hill with screaming skateboard wheels. It's about keeping my feet under me while I'm moving fast.

If this energy is here, I'll respect it. I'll sleep. I'll make it impossible to speak out loud the compulsive thoughts. I'll step away when I need to. I won't let the drugs bring me to the dark place. If anything they can soothe me with nostalgia. With acceptance.

I won't confuse intensity with destiny.

I'm still here. I'm 47 and still here

I choose to ride the hills and surf the waves, until I finally hit my head hard enough on the concrete.

Forgive me, but cherish me

If you dare, I accept you as whole

That is my nature.