You should know up front that though I’ve been dressing myself since my early twenties I’m not really house-broken, not really civilized. I tried it. I tried to be polite, to do things their way, to meet expectations, but it suffocated me. It burned my blood like powdered glass. Silently writhing, my soul ached for something else, for a mystery that stirred inside of me. For a gestalt of understanding beyond letters and words. For a particular kind of seeing. I wanted freedom. I wanted to know the living pulse of the spirit that is everywhere and nowhere. The invisible communication with reality found equally in a smokey old pool room or the top of mountain on a clear morning. To know it in both poetry and adventure. In goodness and sin. I wanted God.