And its all come such a long way. From the pieces to the stencils to the tags. I wrote poetry in bathroom stalls, in library books, on crumpled up pieces of paper and to my Girlfriend[s] (but for the most part they never saw any of it, I was particularly crappy at opening myself up to people).  I'd write, I'd tag, I'd pass around books of particular inspiration to me to strangers. I had a hard time being understood by anyone, but people got it. Somewhere, someone got it. Somewhere, someone cried. And somewhere, someone told me thank you. It was that reason, and that reason alone I kept trucking along.

I was pissed at the Government, but hatred only takes you so far. In retrospect, the anarchy was a misdirected vessel of hormones and over-analyzation. A waste of mental energy. To me, there are much more applications to be had with Idealism and vision then in the fringes of the dull, flat, monotonous  pontification and ratiocination that is the hallmark of so much of the internet talk on politics and change. Art applied to life is where its at.

As much as I was trying to connect to people through the poetry and the relationships and the art, the anger wasn't going away. Yeah, I was angry- I was prolific as well, but man was I angry. It has been pretty consuming, until recently. It has eaten up more then its fair share of bridges and moments in time that I like to admit.

So it goes.

Recently, I have met people from the past that have caused me great, incalculable pain- and I have, smiled, shaken their hands, traded jokes with them, and went about my day. In other instances, I have been maimed with a broken knee and arm and left on the side of the road, suffering from those injuries up to this day, but I am not angry at them. Some people get upset when I try to explain that to them. 'How can you not be angry?!', they say, or  they wonder how I could let go of such things when people are clearly at fault for certain personal crimes. Their questions presume their own answers. The only way to explain it is by letting go yourself and experiencing the relief you get when you do. Whether someone is in the right or wrong does not matter to me any more, what matters is personal growth, and anger has been my biggest hindrance to that. I could be offended and enraged, and stomp my feat and scream 'WOE IS ME!', but so far picking myself up and moving on has been more rewarding 100 fold.

How did that all happen? How did I learn to contain myself? It started like this: About 2 years ago I went to see some friends of a friend at a dance studio, and what they did blew my mind. I had never been more emotionally inspired by anything else save the women in my life. To this day I remember the song and the way they moved, almost to a T.

I joined a dance class the next semester following a pretty thunderous break up. Hence there was a lot of emotion snow balling into this. (On the side, I attended two martial arts tournaments and had a blast doing it with the people I tagged along with. These events also played a really big role in my self-image and esteem) As for the class itself, it was all intro material but the people I met and the things I did henceforth have made me into a new person. I met my last (now ex) girlfriend and we dated for roughly a year- she's responsible for most of my induction into dance culture, and I am very indebted to her. I don't know how well she'll ever understand that, if it even crosses her mind. But its truer then she can imagine.

I even met a couple of friends in class that even taught me how to bboy.  And since then, none of the stuff from the past really makes sense to me. Not the discordianism or the philosophy, or the sarcastic, caustic, cynical tone I used to write in, because I can't see things that way anymore. Sometimes i try to recreate it because its what i know so well, but i don't know it anymore, it is no longer a part of me, and it always comes out feeling contrived.

To me there is something about dancing, especially among other people, that is so uniting and joyous it makes the above appear lame and obsolete in every facet. There are no words for it, absolutely none. In fact talking disrupts the flow. The language expressed by the body is the oldest language out there, and I have found myself in it. I do not hear music the same. I do not look at faces the same. I am drawn in by every ones eyes and the stories told by the way people hold themselves. I find joy in the silences as well as the conversations. I am so very in love with this world and everything in it, I almost can not contain it sometimes. Even when I get sad, everything is so damn beautiful. And it all followed through because I learned how to move my feet amongst a crowd. Who knew it was that simple?

Alongside the dancing, I've also been praying a lot. I asked God to teach me how to not be so angry, and thats what I got. I got it real quick. It took practice, yes, about as much as dancing- but here i am. No two days are the same. I have discovered emotions I did not know existed and learned to express them in ways I did not know were possible. I do not paint with cans or brushes any longer, but with movement and music. I no longer write my poetry on crumpled up pieces of paper, I write them in the hearts of my friends and family. I have come to realize that these people are all i need for a meaningful life and will do everything i can to make the best of life for all of them. And this is the only art I will ever need.