My 7 year old tells me that if I date anyone, that she’ll never speak to me again.

“So my dating life is over?”

“Yes.” She answered.

“I’m kinda relieved actually… I was never that good at it anyway.” I offered.

“You get that from me.” She said. “I’m terrible at it. I tried the hip talk and the cool sunglasses, and nothing works.”

“Just be yourself and someone will love you just for being you… I think that might be why we’re so bad at dating. We don’t put on a mask. We just be ourselves.”Dennis Mantin

Here is the place, now is the time. Experience is the goal. If you’re breathing ; this is it.

There is no other space where we are guaranteed anything.

This is the CHANCE.

Live it. Be it.

Dennis Mantin

“Should I follow my bliss?” The child asked.

“I don’t know.” Answered the teacher. “Do you have the guts to endure 10 years of disappointment and stay with the thing that matters most to you?”

“Yes!” Answered the child.

“Then by all means… follow your bliss.”

Dennis Mantin

Please let me be quite honest with you; As I know no other way. I kinda like writing fictional lies; And do not care what you say.

My daughter said if I ever dated again That no more words would we speak. I said, ” So my dating life is over?… If I’m honest, my game was really weak.”

There’s a relief now I know it’s over. I can put all that drama behind. I didn’t like the fiction. And the lack of peace of mind.

Dennis Mantin

A quiet place to sit and read… With no voices in your head. Except for what you’re reading, Not last night, what was said.

You need to find that quiet That space just meant for you. Or you will go batshit crazy, Ancient wisdom, nothing new.

Dennis Mantin

I take my daughter to the park to teach her how to throw and catch a baseball.

Old men are rolling dice. They laugh and smile and roll and yell.

Some are louder than others, usually the ones on the roll. The others who sit quietly watching, await their turn.

Later waiting for the bus a young man chain smoking, sitting on the sidewalk stops sucking on poison long enough to say, ” You’re confused. ”

It makes no sense until you realize he’s talking to himself or someone only he can see.

Sometimes I feel disconnected to humanity but it usually doesn’t last long.

Dennis Mantin

Our perspectives are understandable, and flawed. From our first breath we feel the fear and shortly thereafter the desire. It is the universal truth of this human experience.

There’s only one way beyond fear and desire and that is through death.

The great deliverance beyond fear and desire…

I have learned a thing or 3. Some of you and much of me.

Where we go, I don’t know. But it’s here, we work through fear.

Dennis Mantin

Sitting at the edge of time.

We ask for truths we never find.

Transcendent worlds so sublime.

Shamans dance to lead the blind.

It’s here, it’s here, you hear them say.

And like a kiss that fades away.

Gripping fear you lose the rhyme.

Sitting at the edge of time.Dennis Mantin

They line the streets outside forming For soup or whatever it is they serve When doors open.

Most bum cigarettes, a few drink rubbing alcohol and others find dehydration through crystal meth. Some have lost their minds.

Some faces stare down at the sidewalk Searching for answers that don’t exist. Some faces talk endlessly with flailing arms extended and pointing out injustices.

A few have that 1000 yards hangover stare that reminds everyone that the pain still remains and isn’t going anywhere, except…

A face I haven’t seen in 15 years. I search for his name. He’s talking. His eyes are clear, his handshake strong. Paul? “I just stopped trying to quit.” He said . “I stopped fighting. Got to go to work now.”

He says, “Goodbye and God bless.”

Dennis Mantin

Fear and desire.

The origin two.

Pure sure fire.

More me than you.

I’ve worked on fear

It’s red white blue

But I fear my Love

The desire grew.

Dennis Mantin