This River Is Wild

We are gods. youth.

I watch an old man walking, his fragile legs barely take him forward. I watch him bent and crooked. watch his worn out eyes. Watch his skin, scared with wrinkles and purple veins. watch his white hair and pale features.
Think about his day.. about what is possible.
What is possible for him.. and what for me? How very different.
I wonder what he would trade to be me for a day?
I wonder what he would trade for this body? I wonder what he would trade for these legs? I wonder what he would trade for these sharp eyes, and bronze skin, and handsome face? What would he trade for my run? What would he trade for my voice? What would he trade for my dance? What would he trade for my strength? What would he trade for my lust?
I think about how many days of youth he once had.. how he was once too a god. And I wonder if he knew it then, like I know it right now.
these days are sacred.




(Andrew Tipton)

Beautiful Us

Long blonde hair and eyes like cocaine razorblades, twenty-seven years old, with a voice that feels as raw and dirty as the cigarette smoke swirling around her. She moves on the stage, her body playing teasing games with my heart; her motion is wild graceful, like a tornado that loves you. A skinny white t-shirt clinging to her curves.. leather boots.. she is singing in the back of the bar, in front of an huge, grungy American flag; red and yellow filtered lights casting spells down over her lyrics and over my mind. I stand there looking up into her face, this rebellious angel of sinful poems - love child of dangerous beautiful.
I raise my bottle to my lips and take a long, cold sip of Budwiser.

In that moment, rock music blaring in my ears, my eyes blurry from smoke and beer - all I could think about was how absolutely beautiful we can be. I looked up at the blonde haired goddess on stage, and admired her confidence, her sway, her love for herself. Like a fire inside my bones, it makes me feel hot and alive when I see beauty on display like that. Not the cookie-cutter beautiful that magazines try to sell us.. but real sexiness: emotional, honest, imperfect. For her, beauty was exactly what she made it.. her own unique, perfect motion. A smile broke across my lips as I thought about that, and I took another long sip of Budwiser.
I believe that the truest, most seductive beauty comes from an internal confidence; a realization that each of us decides our own definition of beautiful. With my interaction with the opposite sex, the women that I find most alluring are rarely stereotypical sex symbols.. pimped, primmed, overly injected manaquins. Instead, I am more deeply attracted to the sensuality of a person who sets their own standard as to how and why they are beautiful. A woman that exudes confidence in her own beauty (no matter how beautiful she may be), is far more sexy than one attempting to fit the mass-marketed idea of sensuality.
On a personal level, I find myself setting imaginary requirements on my appearance, on my body, on my diet.. and then feeling failure if I do not meet them. But why? If I'm making the rules up... doesn't that take off all the pressure? We create our own beauty... we set the standards, we say exactly how we want to look, we decide the definition to beauty - and when we do that, it belongs to us again.. we do it, because we want to.

We are continually sold the idea: "Be Beautiful.".
Not because you want to.. but because you MUST in order to be accepted. That leaves me with a sick feeling in the back of my throat. I would argue, be your own beautiful - there is nothing we must become, no acceptance we must earn, no standard that we must fit.
Will we trade our joy and pleasure for someone else's idea of beautiful? Or will we create our own?

beautiful, is entirely about you.






Andrew Tipton

Sum of You

Make up our minds too quickly.

The other day, afternoon, sunshine when we met. I made up my mind too quickly. Saw you for an instant, summed you up right then and there.. what you are, what you think about on perfect days, what you do for fun, what you don't do; the way you talk, the words you use when you speak.. If I will ever like you.. If you are straight, gay, sideways, backwards, smart, ignorant.. I made it up. All of it, right then, as we exchanged glances.
Too soon? Was it too much too soon? Did I not give you a chance to be you; to explain your dreams and your motions, and your emotions? Is there more to you than my imagination?
And yet, I need you to be that way.. to be something that fits my personal idea of "What Is". It makes me feel in control, makes me feel like I know my world - even if I'm completely off mark.
I take what you say, the ways you move.. your voice and your smile.. and I make it what I absolutely need it to be. In a way, I never even meet you, because I've have already decided how you are - in my mind, you are twisted into a shape that fits where I need you to work.
What would change, if I let you into my world... listened to you, watched you, talked with you, explored earth and mind with you? Would I still need you to "fit"? Or would you re-define my boundaries.. shatter my concept of what and who a person can be? I hope that I am not so afraid, that I cautiously never experience what you are.





(Andrew Tipton)

The Power Of Why

Q. so. question for you. do you believe in fate? not in a 'you were fated to choose that color shirt today' kind of way. but do you think there is anything you are supposed to do? something you were made for? are you doing it, or do you even know what it is?

(From Katy in Australia)

A. To fate. I would answer this: Yes. You asked if there is anything I was made to do.. I definitely think so - I a wheel was made to roll, or like a spear was made to throw. I think we all have specific reasons, or specific passions depending on forces working before our births. I believe knowing all I can about my myself, my astrology destiny, numerology predictions.. my own mind.. awareness.. it enables me to move in a way that I literally was designed for. For me personally, it happens to be adventure, the unknown, wildness, freedom. (I'm a numerology 5, and an Aries by the way) Its not that there aren't other choices for me.. but rather there are choices which ultimately pleasure my soul and heart. I think those choices are different for everyone. Yes, I love the idea of destiny.. of becoming self-aware to the extent that I am consistently making choices that inspire truthful, natural excitement and happiness inside myself. It is the power of "Why" - the answer to that question.. fearlessly taken to its end. Don't stop asking it, until you have exhausted all answers. When you find your answer to "why", you will also find your answer to "fate".

Snow Day

There is somewhere that I always imagined to be my own perfect place. In my head it has been a hammock strung between two swaying palm tress, watching the sunset caress the edge of the horizon; my sunbathed body drifting in an out of summer dreams, with the embrace of waves still lingering on my bare skin and a surfboard not too far away. That is one perfect somewhere. That is becoming one of many of my perfect somewheres.

Today, I woke up in snow. From the second story I pulled open the blinds and looked out, down into the monkey tree - white gentle softness falling on the branches. This is one of those unexpected days, the sort that catches you off balance and unprepared. I pulled on my jacket and my jeans with the holes in the knees, and walked outside; silence and snowflakes coming down everywhere around me. On me. In my mouth. In my eyes. On my skin. On my cheeks. Melting on my fingertips. How long has it been since I woke up unexpectedly to snow? To a white solace; to the quiet seductive pur of snowflakes.

I am in awe today. Remembering that there are many perfect places. Many perfect moments; and the joys that come from all sorts of unprecedented experiences. I live a life in the pursuit of a particular set of perfect.. my ideal lifestyle, my ideal temperature, my ideal girl, my ideal element. How foolish. How naive.
The beauty and marvel of life is the untamed perfection of these days.. the way we are able to experience so many separate perfect somewheres. Somewhere here. Somewhere there. Somewhere between. How much do I miss, because I am so focused on just one sort of perfect day..? Why not just let my mind wander - let perfection find me. It wants to so badly.
I loved today. I loved the random bliss of this unexpected snowstorm.. I loved the snowball fights with strangers downtown.. I loved the way my fingers felt against snowflakes. This today is one of my perfect somewheres; one of many.
There are so many.





Andrew Tipton

Wild Dark Delicious

In the grocery store, there is a plastic bottle in the shape of a bear. It smiles down from the top shelf at me. The icon, the facade, the lie, the smiling bear.
On this plastic bottle, there appears the word "Honey", usually accompanied with pictures of little clovers and happy flowers. In my ever so sweetness of a mind, I conveniently smile back at the plastic bear on the shelf, conveniently pick him up, and conveniently take him along with me.
Ever so easily. Ever so.

I am the god of convenient lies. Tease myself with my own visions of truth; the power of personal suggestion.
Recently, quite content believing that somehow honey is the magic food of smiling bears. If it is easier to justify in my own mind - then I will make it so. Truth via moi.
Life continues "ever so easily", when circumstance calls for me to turn a blind eye to what I don't want to know.

What don't I want to believe? Am I dissuaded by the inconvenience of reality? Do I neglect searching because I don't wish to be aware of my own current delusion? (Distasteful) Will I become upset or displeased, if I find out that the truth of things is not what I pretend they are?
Most times, there is nothing physically stopping me from discovering truth - no obstacles whatsoever.. the information is right there accessible, open, touchable, waiting to be known. Most times, I think I refuse to discover truth... only because I personally do not wish to know.
Knowing makes me vulnerable. Vulnerable to what? To the knowledge of truth; to the bitter unsettling sweat of real. Knowing, elicits a response... and many time I don't want to respond,(like when I look away from the homeless guy at the intersection) - I hate responding when it gets uncomfortable. Aaahhhh.. it does suck to be vulnerable doesn't it. ;) Sweet convenient ignorance is such a necessity these days.

Pretending honey is the magic food of smiling bears is only the very beginning.
How much deeper do I take it?
god of convenient lies; ever so easily.
Do I take it to relationships? Do I take it to conversations? Do I take it to motion? Do I take it to my reactions? Do I take it to my words, my thoughts, my dreams? When does the pretending stop? Where does it start? What else is real, that I simply, ignorantly, conveniently refuse to know?

Bees make honey.
It a secretion from the mouths of tiny fuzzy insects, they spit it up and splash around in it... and I love them for it.
Wild Dark Deliciousness.

(Andrew Tipton)

Waiting for Notice

“There is an incredible astounding beauty subtly woven into everything that exists. The beautiful simplest of every motion; Color, texture, timing, all here, all coming together in an instant - the perfect instant - lying here, waiting for us to just notice. Extrordinary, in no other respects.. it is everything unknown and unfathomable in life. ”

(Andrew Tipton)