Going Where I Don't Know

My feelings aren't hurt,
no, they aren't even alive
to feel what I think they weigh
be dispensed on the sidewalk,
like something worthless,
not worth a second glance,
heck, just a nothing, made up
to excuse my thought-like trance.

Honestly, these expectations
are just too much noise;
I think I'm more, I'm not,
and then the echo deploys.
The world's caught up in it
and my friends all sign up
to what I don't understand,
and I feel it within me erupt.

There isn't much left for words,
forgiveness has already come,
and yet for it to stay with me,
control has to be left alone
so here I go, walking towards
what I don't know, unplanned
and a world's path dodged to find
the one that by it isn't manned.

I'm Listening

I feel alien.
I feel different.
and I feel apart.
because I don't seem to be like everyone else.
because differences are maximised in my mind.
because few, too few, offer to build bridges
and so I have to, cross my heart,
cross these worlds apart and render distance inexistent.

I have to be,
philosophy,
yet have to live,
lie, to fit.
how is this a viable option?
when there are no words,
but those that don't hook onto others.
what language can I speak
so you can understand?
that I feel alone.
that I feel lost.
that I feel like I am a battle without its fighters.
that I know there is no war, but I feel it's worth fighting for.

Teach me to change my habits.
I'm listening.

Care

I found out about a month ago that, personality-wise, I am an INFJ. Apparently it's the rarest of all 16 personality types. This is psychology, and it's not entirely accurate or as intensely applicable for everyone, and I suspect there are blurs between personalities, but the description for INFJ sums up my behavior and mental patters quite well. INFJ stands for Introverted/Introspective Intuitive Feeling Judging.

One trait found in INFJs and me alike, is caring for others. I have said, several times to friends, that I find it difficult not to care about people. I care too much. Whether it manifests in a positive way, such as trying to help someone with a problem, or whether it is more negative, such as caring about what someone somewhere says about me that may be negative. It's a twisted, paradoxical approach to the world and what we call 'life'. Delve, I go.

I care about people. Very much. Even those who tended not to be very nice to me in high school. I fantasised about standing up to them and bringing justice with my witty vocabulary and words of literary steel, but none of that came out really, because I never saw the need for vengeance past the illusion of a thought. I thought the bullies off my bus during my high school years weren't being nice to me when they called me 'gay' or 'big-nose', but I did not think they were bad people, just choosing conflict or preying upon the weak because they felt they had to, somehow, in their minds. I didn't know about egos at the time, but that's effectively what was operating in their minds, I reckon now, retrospectively. They were, still are, human beings, who I felt ought to have been punished, so they would learn from their mistakes. But at the same time, I also felt they needed to be treated with compassion, somewhere behind my peek-a-booing veil of revenge-thoughts. I cared about them even when they hurt me. I couldn't bring myself to harm them, to retaliate. I just went back into my shell, accepting the damage they were dealing me as pain, overthinking about it the next day. Funny times, those were. But I grew past that.

I care about people, even before I meet them. I recognise that you are a human being, and if I meet you, I assume you have a need to be cared for. This care manifests if I can get out from behind the introverted wall that is placed up like a panel against the wind, when we first meet. It comes down the more trust I can build in you. And it isn't very hard to build trust, it just requires you to pay me attention, even just being interested in what I have to say, or asking me questions. But even with that windbreaker, I care about you. I want to hear about your problems and perhaps I could offer you some help with them. Even if they are minor, I enjoy listening and then solving. I am not always right, I do not promise I am. But I feel I can be of service by simply listening, being there. I cherish that position of someone that is 'always there'. If not in body, in spirit. I truly value that because I feel it's a way of interacting and connecting with people, by jumping on their ship and showing them perhaps, if I know, how to steer out of the muddy waters they may find themselves in. I feel useful when I do that, when I help. And afterwards, when they are in calmer seas, I feel good, and still care about them.

The windbreaker I put up is more for my own protection, as a way of preventing hurt from you by not sharing so much with you until I feel it is safe to share that. The way to make me feel safe is by showing me you care enough to listen to what I say without judging me. Judgment is terrifying for me. Well, I have learned to not dwell upon it, but in the moment that it is given, I still am affected by judgments. I haven't yet found the strength to just discard them and move on. But I reckon that will come.

I care. I would like others to care as much as I do, about others, about me. Alas, that does not happen, nor I believe is it meant to. I want to be cared for, yes, while still offering care to others. I believe people who do care for me could communicate that to me. It feels good. It validates my existence, to know that I am not alienated. I don't have to be made to feel special, because that is an illusion and I accept that. But the more selfless I am, without having some of that care returned, the more drained I feel. But expecting... I am expecting... I need to stop that. Because expectations aren't going to be fulfilled.

"A Course In Miracles" says that one should not have any cares, and just trust. So, I trust. I think it refers to cares more of the material type, but, what if it also means the emotional type. Like emotional validation. No 'what ifs'. I remember now. A close friend told me not to do those 'what ifs'. Just go with it. So I leave this question open, and trust in the Answer.

I wonder also whether it is a question of others not being able to express that they care. Or perhaps they don't feel the care at all, and it's just in my head because I want them to care for me as much as I care for them. I realise that people don't do that - they don't show it. And I accept that, I don't need to be overwhelmed by it, as I imagine I would be if the same level of care that I project into the world would be returned on to me. Yet, I want more. And I have been told that I ought to be more selfish. I do want to be cared for. A good friend says to me that that's just being human. Before, I thought thinking something like that was terribly arrogant and demanding. Now, perhaps it isn't quite as horrific, but it still doesn't sit well with me. It feels like I'm asking something of the world that it cannot give. Love, say. Maybe I'm just not seeing it. Maybe I choose not to see it because I want to feel like a victim? That's no winning formula.

But people can give love. I cannot expect it, or I will be disappointed. But I hope, somehow, someday, I will receive love, unhinged, unencumbered, unconditional. And I give because I am given.

Somebody's Anchor

You caught me dreaming again,
held down by the weight of my mind
and I asked for your help up.
but you gave it to me,
so easily, hand from your heart,
I took it with my fingers,
dripping chains, doubtful daze,
dragging mud in my wade.

I have a fear, that
I'm not where I'm supposed to be,
that
I'm weighing you down,
someone's anchor, on one knee
I'm begging for mercy,
and you're still smiling.
It's one more burden I have to carry
to see you happy
though you didn't ask me that,
you didn't ask me for that.

I'm hoping that I'm not dragging you
while I'm trying to float
at the bottom of the ocean
I call lies, you call life,
pieces of harmony
carved together in the sand,
planks of wood reminding me
that I'd wished for irony.

I have a fear, that
I'm standing in the way
of you just understanding that
I cannot be who I say I am,
and you,
you stand there smiling, still,
like I can't feature grim
or make a fool of myself,
someone's anchor,
someone's pillow in the depths.

Finally, cast ashore,
I want to be free
but I cling to you rope
that you tied round your calf
when you pulled out of the sand,
my sanity,
and me with it.

I am scared, still,
drowning in a new air
of responsibility, guilt still heaving
down my breathing.
And you want to float, away,
spirited display, affection.
I just want you to stay.
Don't ever leave me, alone.
You saved from certain death
but I can't live by myself.
I'm somebody's anchor,
and I want to be yours.

Growing Up, In

When we were outside, we'd find ourselves face to face with a gravity-defiant sea of space, pushing us down into the surface of the earth. We'd call that lying down, ears touching the blades of grass that still managed to tickle us while their neighbours were flattened by the weight of our burgeoning craniums. That was our affectionate relationship with nature, our childish imprint upon the ground, it allowing us to be like children. And now, we seem to have grown into something different, older, aware of what we've done by how we see that our surroundings have bent to our wills.

They have allowed our whimsies to shape them, without strife. At times we were hurt, yes, when we pushed too far. Nature would be on its way, though, regardless of what we thought our fortress-building or sculptural selves could achieve. And I think, close to the ground, then, we were being reminded that we, too, are on that same course. We call it life. Nature doesn't call anything anything. And in the realisation is a joining of wills.

We learn to allow, ourselves. That's growth. Then the sea is our yonder. Miracles glow from its depths, our depths.

Thoughts, Trust, Translation

I have this feeling right now, as I'm talking to my friend who is suffering and away in another city, of being distant and alien. I'm trying to tell her not to worry about her exam, and trying to make her aware of the psychology of what she's doing, as I see it. Basically, trying to make her more conscious of her actions and what consequences they are having on her mentality as she's relaying to me and I'm interpreting. I've done this many times before, with her, with others, so much so that perhaps it's become my schtick, part of my identity. Yet, having done it up until now, I'd felt like I'd had something to give, like I could help. And now, in doubting myself, I also doubt what I can say to her, since it's the same problem that's cropped up just in a different format each time. I suddenly feel distant, like the language I'm using to speak to her is different to hers. And a different dialect means communication is broken, at least on the surface. At least to me. She replies laconically with a 'LOL' and a 'k'. I don't know how to interpret that. She says she knows what I mean and that she'll try take my advice. I say 'good'. This is where I leave it to faith.

Maybe it's my own insecurity that I'm projecting onto her own mental imbalance that is making me feel that I've lost my 'touch'. I'm not as much in contact with who I thought I was, and so, confidence aside, I don't really believe in what I'm saying as much anymore. I talk about love as if I know what it means. I talk about fears and their non-existence but as illusions in our minds as if I abide by those rules, yet I don't. I haven't yet learned enough of these lessons that I try teach others. And it's making me feel inadequate, like I ought not to talk to them lest I teach them something 'wrong', even though I don't believe I can do that.

I just feel confused really. Uncertain about who I am, at the core of it all - and so, everything, everything that rests upon this foundation, now is blurred. "A Course In Miracles" did say that in order to follow it, I would eventually end up questioning everything I believed in. And I accepted that, perhaps not wholeheartedly. But now it seems real. Doubt has entered. Ok, I understand most things are not as I thought they are. And yet, it has to go deeper than that. And I feel that the deeper I go, the more distant I become from the world, from the people in it, from what they do and what they think about. That's... unsettling. But perhaps it's only unsettling because I am still trying to think my way through it all. Thinking's a defense mechanism for me. It reduces all change down to an interpretation that maintains my mental schematics and plans as intact as it can. But now, everything I'd been working for, built in that schema, is under doubt. Does it really matter? Well... if I think about it, I try answer yes and say why and postpone and delay. And if I just leave it? I come to an uncomfortable feeling of... 'no, it doesn't matter.'

So it doesn't matter that I don't know what my life is about. It doesn't matter that I have tried to build an image of myself as always being there for other people, sacrificing myself along the way. It doesn't matter, because it's not true, and it's too hard to maintain anyway. It doesn't matter who I've tried to impersonate. It doesn't matter that I've questioned my sexuality and haven't concluded anything concrete. It doesn't matter that I tried to attract the attention of some of my friends over and over and over again, seeking validation for what I was doing and thinking. It doesn't matter that I was trying to make things that didn't matter, matter. It still doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, I'm not the one that decides what matters and what does not. I am not God. And so, all that I've 'striven' to maintain, a "Cris" that is nice as can be, intelligent, altruistic, caring, loving, emotional, determined, proactive, sociable, approachable, going-that-extra-mile-for-someone, not asking for much in return, all that, doesn't matter. It doesn't.

I'm not saying I am a waste of space because I'm not. I'm not a victim here, despite what my ego would like me to believe. But it doesn't matter that I tried to be this way, and not, say, a bully, or a heartless asshole, whatever that means. Because, I feel I've cheated myself in trying to use this 'good' image as a ladder to get love from people, attention and validation particularly. I think part of my image used to be that I didn't require these, and when I was given them perhaps I took them for granted. And now, now that I've gone into my thought patterns, I've unmasked that there is a desire, suppressed, for attention and validation. I thought I was above those, but apparently wanting them just makes me human. And I ought not to be ashamed to ask for them. The 'how to ask' part I'm a bit hazy on, however. Maybe I thought I wasn't human, I was better than human. Imagine that; a human thinking he is better than a human. False superiority complex. Yeah. This isn't unconditional love at all. Yet, maybe the attention and validation that I'd gotten is the closest thing I've come to, so far, from what I can remember. Yet the past is gone so what am I left with if I'm not to dig up memories. How can I even tell if something is unconditional if I don't trust it, anyway?

The love I get, I have to trust. I think that's the lesson. Trust that it won't go away, the truth in it is ever unconditional and will remain that way. The question my mind comes up with then is how can I tell when someone gives me love? And that requires trust, too. The desire to see it, too. I remember something: If I believe someone is hurting me, then I will believe I am hurt. And if I believe someone loves me, then I will believe I am loved. I prefer the latter. I would prefer it be the truth. I can't translate from anything to truth though. That's where You come in then. Be my translator, please.

I i, I

Who am I?

I start everything with that, whether I leave a space for it or not, but that's where it all begins. From there stems reinforcement and building blocks of some structure I would not mess with, lest I feel afraid to press backspace and erase all evidence of the mistakes I've made. So, before I give the answer, let me leave another world and come back more courageous.

Seeing for the First Time

I've left the ghost behind
at the entrance to the void.
Now
I amble away
from the park bench
to the moon,
which I can reach because
I don't believe in distance.
The moon is here,
wherever I am.
Isn't that wonderful?

I always refer to myself as a capital letter, that's how I was taught English. But I reckon I'm actually an i, not an I. An I is a colonnade, holding up what is above, stories from rooms and roomfuls of semantics. An I is a vertical bridge to heaven, crossed by a little work of art that no one really knows by name, nor by author, but by distant recognition. An I is the world of safekeeping, but a bar in the windowless prison of mind, behind which all secrets are stashed away. An I is the shadow of a larger I, which is the shadow of an even larger I, big in presence. The I is the pole around which sense turns and imitates. Yet this isn't me, because although language believes I am capable of being capital, majestic, purposeful, I am incomplete as of yet, an i.

i am the symbolic gesture of a man who's looking across a gap to something of his kindred that is out of his reach though not out of his consciousness. i am the pedestal upon which floats some crystal ball of meaning. i am the angel grounded with the halo suspended in the air above him, lighting his surroundings as a sun, as yet untouchable. i am that which appears in situations and in warriors and in kisses and in rain. i am forgiving, willing to see beyond the space that seems to separate what has been believed lost from what appears to struggle to keep together. i am writing something somewhere here, sometime, with my purpose imagined, though inexplicably seized as reality. i am nobody, touching the eternal. i am everybody. i am somebody, too, a pez dispenser, a severed giant, a slope ready to welcome a boulder. i am even, these words.

Language may have taken a leap to signpost reality. I is inclusive. i am not, as evidenced by the gap. I is higher, dominant; i, incomplete. Line and a dot, more code, more secrets. I is representative of wholeness, identity with all. i but pretends, aspires, yet is nothing. Language has given me the impression that I is the embodiment of totality, while i am fragmented. According to the rules, i am I though. So I have come masked in this existence, standing tall, the bearer of responsibility. But really, i am frailer, unsure, supposedly something that is, as yet, unfinished. But I am to assume the completed form, to show my invulnerability, immutability, the self that stands centered around which sentences orbit and semantics gravitate.

I am all, so then i must be in there somewhere too. Now there are two of me, the me of now, and the me of anything but now: past, future, all other tenses but the present. Everything to i is relative then, because what occurs is never the whole picture, just details, pixels, morsels, bits. But I has everything, together, connected in all ways, full, wholesome. With this known, the realisation dawns on me, that i don't know who i am. i could be whoever, whatever, because I am everything. As such, i have a double-identity, the I and i, though one is inclusive of the other. The question of who am I thus ought to refer to the i, because I already know the answer. The i represents something, has some place, occupies some space. I was wondering what its meaning would be, but now I am not so worried, having already the answer to everything in me. Perhaps the i just is one path, this path taken now, to the discovery of everything. i am concerned with what will be and what has happened before, where i will go, but I only experience it as now, and now, here, all is known. So all problems, fears, come from the i trying to be I, a next to nothing trying to be everything and failing, being limited. Yet I can never fail, and so i find my purpose when i meet with I now.

Just stay here, now, I tell i.
i respond to I. I i, I.

Shit-shat

I seem to seek out relationships that fall under my categorisation of 'deep and meaningful'. Apparently, to me, that is the form of relationship that not only lasts longest but offers me most opportunity for growth.

I think I was under the influence of idealism when I made up that cockamamie criteria. I did not realise that I was unconsciously trying to fit every single friendship I had into that tight box which visually I picture as a plastic bottle rim that remains on the bottle after the lid is taken off. So, I feel ashamed, though I should cease judgment, to admit that it's really what I look for in all relationships - the capability of space and depth so the meanings of life can come through. I've been missing the point of communication. No wonder I feel lonely, but I think I had been too proud to look at myself in the mirror and see that how I was seeing other people was truly under a microscope that sought to penetrate through the skin to their core, a core I would have taken as a prize for my triumph over mediocrity. Pride again.

The realisation came to me this evening, sparked off by words a friend who said, after listening to what I had been saying about anxiety and borders between people and my fears that it was difficult to transcend them, that to him everyone is his friend. It's a simple attitude, a perspective, yet somehow I'd erased it from my consciousness from when I was younger. I am nice and respectful to others, yet from about the start of this year, I've been unable to properly connect with new people, save for some, because I'd always be thinking about what they were thinking about me or how I should act so that I don't budge any of their social protocols. I've trained myself to see these barriers, and thus believe in them as if they were real, so now instead of seeing faces I see walls with faces behind them. And my attempts are muffled as the sound refracts.

I resorted then to a method of connection that was deeper than skin, and thus not conveyable via words, though I tried that way, too. My friend respectfully, honestly and correctly pointed out to me towards the end of our dialogue, that I try too much to connect too deeply with people I barely know. This comes partly from the belief that I'd been attempting to learn that everyone is, within, the same, one. Mostly, I believe it comes from stubbornness and fear, a combination that disallows me the comfort of 'chit-chat' in favor of 'heart-to-heart'. I'm almost too keen to have heart-to-heart conversations because I feel more comfortable discussing the meanings of life and whatnot, in my pride thinking such things mean much more than 'petty' things that people talk about, from food, to the weather, to what happened yesterday. But in truth, 'hidden meanings' have no more meaning than 'meaningless banter'. That's because, save for rare occasions which subconsciously I believe I seek out in these attempts, introspection is based on my own semantics and thus just shows up more complex images of what I believe. To clarify, a cup can be a vessel of possibility, or it could just not match with a plate, both ways the meaning lying on different levels, and both missing the spaciousness before meaning where truth resides and reflects.

This is what I learned today - complexity is not only unnecessary but counter-intuitive. Life is simple, because there is only one truth. Trying to explain, analyse, understand this, is making nothing out of everything. I had been skipping rungs on the ladder of reaching people, believing myself able to simply go to the 'meaningful' shit without going through the 'chit-chat'. Yet I see it everyday, 'chit-chat', on Facebook, on the street, on TV, among people I know. I do it, too, but there's situations where I somehow believe myself capable of transcending it, but all I'm really agreeing to is a more complex version of chit-chat, one which I'm supposedly better at because I can speak formally and write poetry and think about different perspectives. But this stuff, even at this level, doesn't mean shit. It's just advanced chit-chat. Shit-shat. Sometimes there is truth being pointed to, yes, but mostly it's just an egoic attempt at feeling superior to others because I'm so darn special and capable of speaking in such rhetoric that you can either awe at or participate in. You don't get to know me better that way though, you just get to know my ego.

Bullshit. People are people, not fulfillment-givers. And if we are all one, then we are all connected to each other anyway. Talk is just a way of becoming aware of that connection. Shit-shat is a fancy way of asserting I'm better than you. Which I am not, but my ego's suicidally argumentative. But I'm not my ego. I am not bitter as a host for the insane. I'm simply there.

That's what I want confirmed anyway though, that you're there, when I talk to you. I try to be there when you talk to me. Sometimes I'm out back watching my ego shit-shat with your face, and my attention's swiped. I have this big idea that when you talk to me I'm going to have an epiphany and you're going to give me the answers to the problem that I've labelled 'life'. And if we do get to have a heart-to-heart, it'll be idyllic and wonderful, and we'll be vulnerable but strong (but it will be more of an ego-to-ego, permissibly self-conscious only because one ego believes the other to be more flawed than itself).

I'm just trying to understand this, that's all. Or am I? I don't know. I'm still shit-shatting.

Closure

Even though there's less than a lip in between,
I can clearly see where you end, I begin
to wait for symbols but the fibres are thin,
and I measure more than I'd like to have seen
in the distance in between

your words, laundry-pinned to dry in my sun,
hanging from the moment ago they were spun
in drenching new-birth, concatenating with mine
to form the meaning I'd been meaning to sign
in the distance in between

us, and what has happened, what could never be,
there was nothing woven where nothing's to see
and I crane my neck, reading in front of me
the results of what I asked for, honesty
in the distance in between

the self that I aligned myself with, and you
expelling the code that puzzles me through
the silences when we meet, our rendez-vous
from a language I speak to get to what's true
in the distance in between

the vocal chambers that reside in bodies
picking up signals from closer melodies
that sound out help from minds not at ease
like mine, a poet ambling in memories
in the distance in between

where I've done too much searching for your smile,
ghosts have passed a lonelier road in denial
of their release, who I'd joined up with, all the while
talking, yelling, mouthing verbs and nouns, guile
in the distance in between

that I'm trying to overlook even here,
sounding out various prayers to an ear
I imagine is yours, wherever you hear
the fibres telling you that I am near
in the distance in between

where really there's a bridge you laid the instant
when the strings I tugged began their descent
into my sun-deprived consciousness, sent
from the warmth I recalled as an infant
in the distance in between.

Addiction To Thought

This has occurred to me several times, but perhaps it's now becoming clearest. I am addicted to thinking, and having seen what addictions can do to people, both indirectly in the media, and directly in the people that surround me, I've attempted to stay away from such external things so as to lead a more balanced life, perhaps set an example to others so that they themselves can see that they don't have to live that way. And perhaps it appears fine, from the outside, but from the inside it has not been the same peaceful picture of perfection.

The truth is, I struggle with thinking because it is my drug. It is strange to call it that because it isn't exactly some substance I feed on, but it's one I know I'm addicted to because it's so difficult to stop it. Even writing this is made difficult by the desire to make it sound good so that it can be read by people and understood and appreciated. But I will attempt to simply let my thoughts flow like a stream of consciousness, without feeding the need to be special.

Thinking is addictive. It gives me a quick-fire feeling that I am doing something. It validates me. Just like receiving a text or receiving a Facebook notification, a thought reminds me that I am alive, and there is something to acknowledge. Often, these thoughts are not positive, because if they were they would not be a bother and they would not come seemingly incessantly. I could describe it as a bombardment of sorts, thoughts coming in and landing without much care as to where, in my field of attention. As each one appears, it demands I listen to it, and if it sounds remotely believable in what it is about, it joins the cycle of consideration where it says what it says and then I hardly have time to decide if it's true or not because there's another thought on its way, usually on the same wavelength. This happens with negative thoughts.

An example: I often get the thought, when I go on Facebook, that other people's lives that I see pop up in my news feed, either through photos or through status updates or just conversations, are much richer and funner than mine. I cannot prove this, and I would not prove this, because it's a comparison based on nothing but my own feeling of inadequacy with my own life, that I'm not good enough in the eyes of others or that I'm not really worth their time because they clearly aren't having that fun with me. When I get this thought, my mind shifts into a sort of 'victim-mentality', where I tell myself that others have not looked at me honestly and considered me for what I am worth, i.e. they have judged me for what I am not. This necessarily implies that I have been attacked by them, in my mind, often taking the form of abandonment feelings or perceived exclusion. This is a lie, of course. I cannot possibly know if those faces that come up on the news feed would ever think like this, and even if they could, I doubt I'd ever done anything to deserve such cruel punishment. But my mind, enslaved in its dreams of doom, chooses to not to doubt the dream's reality and pursues an agenda of thought that reinforces the pain I feel. And so, I get thoughts that say I am unworthy, followed by ones doubting whether I really matter to the people that know me, whether my being in their lives really has any meaning beyond appearances. The thoughts usually center around particular individuals who my mind sees as worse enemies because they have betrayed my trust in not giving me the attention that I desired. They don't deserve this, not by any means. I recognise this now, because I am calm, yet in the moment, it is not as easy to discern this truth from the wall of lies that consistently put me down and swallow my attention. The impression remains once I get off the computer, kept alive by the talking in my head, telling me I'm not good enough. And I, well, believe it.

It isn't true. I tell myself this yet I wish I would believe it. There is still a part of me, that refuses to accept that even though people are not 100% in contact with me all the time, they have not abandoned me. I feel this too often though, and it is strengthened through a domino-effect of thought after thought of negative affirmations. In the case of this thought, many different reactions are possible - one could simply dismiss the thought and laugh at what it says, though I fear to do that due to not wanting to risk my pride swelling. One could indulge in drink/food/alcohol/substance in order to take their mind off the thinking. I chose avoid the ceasefire so as to drive myself insane via an internal war, a war of voices and shouting. Thoughts come and fight against other thoughts to decide on truth, as if truth hadn't already been decided. But it's like they don't want to know the truth, they just want to fight amongst themselves because at least in this way they seem to have meaning, even for the short while while they're causing me suffering.

I'm addicted to the thoughts because I don't know yet how to decide what is true and what is false. "A Course In Miracles" says that is not my job to decide, and I would graciously accept that, if I didn't believe that my ego needed to know things and could know such things too. But it in itself is false, so it'll never tell me the truth anyway. The arguments for keeping it are absurd and do not work, yet they are kept because they are kept hidden in my mind, away from the eyes of others and away from mine too. What would I do if I'd lost my ego? I'd probably live a much happier life anyway, free of cares and worries. But, there's a but. I'd have no secrets, no need for them. No shame. No embarrassment. No barriers. And thus the ego would have no meaning, and without meaning, my existence would be... meaningless? I am more than my ego, but my ego says it is necessary for functionality in this world. I don't wholly believe that, but I believe it more than not, since I haven't yet been proven otherwise.

Thinking is a form of security, protection. Against what? Against being taken over, against the reality that I'm not really in control of my life. Yet this protection limits my potential so so enormously that life becomes a scrap of damaged experiencing. Not worth it, I've told myself sometimes. I need to stop this thinking. I need to. Must. And I don't know how, but I need to do it, otherwise I won't be able to connect with anyone or anything because I'll always be blocked off by illusions and pain.

So in writing this, is my question, my call for help to God, the universe. I am here, not of this earth, but on it, for some purpose. I do not know what it is, though I could think about it and not find it. The truth is, I resort to thinking too often because I don't trust in the connection I have with You. That's to say, I don't trust You. I want to though, because I sure ain't happy trusting in myself and my personal version of hell. Help me out. I want release from my illusions and I want to see the world as it is, others as they are. I need to let go of my thoughts in order for this to happen, and I envision that will be soon, at this rate. Please be there to catch me, with a cloud or something, then take my hand, firmly, and show me the way back to You.

Lack Thereof

Words,
and in the spaces in between,
mines:
to be careful where you step is to
step where lines are dreamt
but soon forgotten.

Words,
and the eyes that read them,
signs:
to understand means to stand
under the post and point in
the right direction.

Words,
and where the letters meet,
bridges:
to speak is to move across
incorporeally into another's
set of teeth.

Words,
and behind the physicality,
thought:
to be or not to be and electricity
surges through neurons and
passes by me.

Words,
and what it all really means,
nothing:
to be left imbued by what is true
is to never have left love and it be
forever with you.