The Last Day Before Semester 2 Starts

I've spent the past few weeks examless and a couple of weeks before that semi-examless, yet I don't feel I've gone into the mindset of being on holiday. I say mindset because while I have been aware of there being a lack of needing to go to university and to study, all that energy has just been reallocated into other thinking, and some into non-thinking, which has allowed me to realise some things. In no particular order.

1) I take things far too seriously. Somewhere along the way that I can call my life, I switched, likely unconsciously, a switch that made me take whatever happens in my life with heavier hands and more attentive eyes. I think there's two sides to this. One, the 'serious' things that happen to other people (and myself as well), cannot be avoided, and years of counselling and advice-giving has made me think twice about the way they appear. A smile can be a smile. But a smile can conceal. And often what we conceal is what we want to run away from, perhaps when we ought not to be running away from it. The possibility of there being something seriously wrong in someone's psyche has made me think twice about why people do what they do, why they say what they say. And this is where the other side of the issue is revealed, because this, when applied to the majority of situations, means both misinterpretation but also a tendency to overreact to what others do and say. Simple jokes, meaning drenched in sarcasm, become harbours for hidden agendas. A little paranoia, here. And then, bitterness, when I realise those jokes were jokes and I took them seriously. Disappointment at myself for making myself into a fool, but also anger, whether it be towards the jokers, or the jokes themselves, or myself, the butt. Thus a balance is needed, a balance that I believe now to be struck by trust. The trust that whoever has something serious to focalise on, will be assisted in their way by whoever is in the best position to help them. Consequently, I withdraw my responsibility for the actions and feelings of others. If I am needed, I will be there. If I am not, I will not. Amen.

2) There is a difference between loneliness and aloneness, one discovered and clarified by some quotes from Osho. Loneliness is always in relation to the other, and thereby focuses on a lack of the other that is felt as a lack of self. Aloneness, on the other hand, is not relying on another, and simply being aware of the self. So aloneness is not lonely, because it is with the self. And that self relationship is the well from which all things aligned arise at the right time to be met and acted upon. Loneliness is a reflection of dependency, dependency which I realised I was harbouring towards my friends and acquaintances, as well as towards my brother and parents. I'd grown up expecting things of them, and many times they met them, and many times they did not and so I felt cheated, abandoned, a victim at their feet, unseeing his responsibility, my responsibility, for my own actions. I need them. I need you. That is loneliness, and what I want from it would never be fulfilled. It is not difficult to understand, though I am seeing it is taking some time to cement itself in my consciousness, because I have not been used to thinking that aloneness and loneliness were different, and that the previous is positive while the latter negative. I got used to co-dependency, and it is only recently, through pain and surrender to that pain, that I discovered that my fulfillment and joy does not lie in someone else's hands and therefore does not depend upon anyone else's actions. Instead, it comes from within. And paradoxically, it is true to say I am never alone, but I am always alone, since the self-relationship is the only one which is always there, and the more conscious I become, the more rooted I will be, and thus, nurtured and nurturing.

3) "Be fully invested in an effort, but not attached to the outcome." The words of Marianne Williamson. I've found myself so easily carried away into thinking I must control outcomes because success or failure depended upon my efforts, but I have learned it is not so. What do I know what a success is and what a failure is, because after all, they can both happen at the same time, because they are simply different perspectives on the favorableness of an outcome? I can see that things can be seen both as 'good' and as 'bad', so somewhere along the way I must have decided that everything needs to be seen as 'good' in my eyes, and I thought the 'good' was inherent in the outcome and not in the way it is seen. So I tried to fix the outcome, instead of fixing my lenses. I think this 'control' then comes from a faulty sight, seeing untruth as the truth. Knowing, then, that the outcome is neither 'good' nor 'bad' but just is, I do not have to control it, knowing that life will play its part in using whatever outcome it may be to its best use where it is most appropriate, something I cannot judge, but something that awareness itself can. I am grateful for that. It allows me to focus on what I am doing now, instead of what will come about. This, I want to carry on. Though I may stumble, I will allow that, unconcerned about 'getting there' but simply participating on the journey.

4) Having said what I have said about dependency and its affecting my mentality by giving me expectations of others that they need not be burdened with, I am learning to become more independent. Aloneness is sheer independence, according to Osho. I am not saying I do not need to depend on anyone ever again - I need not wall myself in and just meditate for the rest of my existence as this form. What I mean, instead, is that I can relate to others without being attached to them, or what they might do (the outcome). This way, I am not possessive. When I am alone, conscious of myself as myself, independent and thus aware that I do not need anyone else for fulfillment, I can fully invest myself in an activity, whether it is solitary or whether it involves another person. And what will come of that is then of its own accord, perhaps using me as a vessel, but not of me as a form. Amazing things can happen when life flows through. It performs miracles, it permits everything, and guides what needs to be guided back towards itself. Being a vessel for that, is, I believe, the point of this all. It is peace, it is joy. And it does not rely on the serious, unstable, inconsistent, uncertain, me. I am grateful to be.

Open My Eyes

Pinpoints in this relationship
are corneas for the indulgent,
those thoughts I harbored
as I stole from my own coffers,
believing them yours,
believing them rightfully mine.
I carried on, bending to a rule
that distance should be pinned
only by tempting opportunity;
thus I sewed dependent roots
and a tethered foundation,
wanting our minds tethered,
first believing my mind severed.

And I see my mistake,
in believing in my version of events
sediments of loneliness,
ere treasured sorrows.
It is evolution that has lit up
the hallways of my mind
to the reflections of shame.
I owe myself the attention I'd paid
to the wounded you I'd made.
I'm thankful it is as it is,
though it hurt, it was because
I'd kept my eyelids shut to
the world within without.

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.

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.

Nobody's Road

This poem is not about you, but
I feel you're worth mentioning.
It is written because
honesty will find me truth.

I feel excluded.
Yes, that's how it feels to me
when you share your attention
as a merchant would swap coin
in a market -
there's so many you can talk to
about everything and what -
what is there to talk about
but what is what,
and laughs about.

Hold on, before I name you not.
This is all in my head, is it not?
I'm trying to let go of you,
of this paragon you represent,
yet I hold out, hooked on a sliver
of your well-to-be shirt,
reconsidering.

Could you make me happy?
Could you be the one I want,
the one I've always called for,
even though I know,
I am nobody special,
nothing to spend much coin on,
offering little return in your eyes.
It is only in mine that you find lies,
because they stand in between
you and me, me and you -
one, but distanced as two.

And so apart we stand,
you in the middle of a bidding war,
me imprisoned behind a stall,
looking loneliness in the face,
watching it not smirk but smile
and mouth "you chose this."

I realise, I must have, I did.
By bending my thoughts back
into my fingertips, I typed,
on and on, the poetry of a sod.
I wanted your attention,
and you gave it to me in pieces -
never the whole thing.
I wonder, did you know I would
not be satisfied? Did you think
I wouldn't be, ever?

I forgive you.
It's best you didn't ruin your existence
while I was attempting to ruin mine.
Your smile, I still like it,
but I don't like it when I don't cause it.
That's right, I feel responsible
for your happiness.
And the 'sweet' things you enticed me with
give me no room to breathe
while I think them over and over
for their meaning.

You told me to find a girl.
I didn't. Not yet. Not one that would have me.
Yet I crave - crave - your approval
because I feel it will make me happy.

But - I know better now.
This is all in my head.
So, my happiness is guaranteed
if I just get you out of it,
at least off your throne.

You can't make me happy,
I can't reciprocate.
I tried. Clearly, I failed.
So what are we to each other now
but passing thoughts:
one is yearning for the other,
for the same nothing to be real,
and one is something
I can't touch.

This is nobody's road.

The Way Beyond The Walk

I hear the rain pulling out the rift of space
between my facial features and my feeling
of abandonment. It dries up the pale light
of peace. Some corpse lies on a table alone,
undergoing instructions to shrivel. Sand
remains remain to remind one is yet free.

Remember the voice of silence, yelling "Free
yourself!" Now I have given it more thought space;
see I have drawn with a mental stick in the sand
my aspirations. These schematics, feeling
has kept firm and unbent. Now that I am alone,
I can exhume them to be burned by the light.

Friendships, relationships, secrets in the light
of truth, their funeral is nigh. Let me free
also my buried heart, a symbol left alone
far longer than desired. Amidst found space,
I gather from below the surface of feeling
like I understand, a feather kept by sand.

I used it to write down names, scribblings in sand,
of those who I held dear. Carved, when met by light,
they still shine, resplendently touching, feeling,
setting their etched presence and nuances free.
Perhaps in my voyage, I may roam in space
for them. Maybe not. Maybe I journey alone.

Yet this path is too well-traveled - the alone
eventually find it, don't they? Breathe. Sand
parts and the windswept realms greet me with the space
to find my way. My luggage gone, I trip light.
I am not even burdened by want to be free
and so, I rest in an embrace of feeling.

Ever, I could not encapsulate my feeling
into expressions where I was left alone.
Now, I reach beyond them to where being free
is but the way beyond the walk in the sand
of mind. Joined are the granules, in purest light,
permeating the dunes on the shores of space.

I am free of any bounding feeling
That in space, in rain, I am held alone.
In the wet sand, I but follow the light.

Alignment

You see now?

I see now.
I complicated the whole thing myself by fragmenting it into tiny little pieces and putting them back together. Of course they fit, I treated it like a puzzle, but they were never apart anyway. You can't fix what ain't broken, the saying is right. If it's not broken, there is no need to fix. I didn't need to be fixed either. I needed my space, I needed to see the bigger picture. Voila, I got a glimpse of totality. It's nothing to chase, it's already here. It's simply a matter of alignment. Reality, with what is. They are already aligned, which is what confused me before, but the point is for me to realise that they are one and that there is no elsewhere, for one must be all, which is why we are alone. It's already there, all of it in place.
I heard a story today that I've been wondering about for a while. I didn't know how to react, I may have made some remarks to express my desire, my approval of this story being told. But come now, space. It is here you are, where I am, what I am, who I am. I trust. This is the way. To let be, what is. In my initial silent struggle for an answer, I though the world was on my shoulders, that I was special, that I had some idea that needed to be expressed through me. But I was misguided by my ego. There is no such thing, no weight. There is freedom, responsibility - but no burden. It is love, it is will. Answers are given as they are received. When means nothing because it always is now. What I have is what I am, and neither subtracts from the other. There is no fear, for when I walk into the valley of the shadow of death, there is light.

C'est parfait.

Amidst All The Black And The Undone

So high. Just amazing, the view from up here. There are few clouds in sight, apart from the one I'm on of course. Floating is freeing, physically. What happened?

Firstly, let there be words.

Entanglement
Written words
Desolace
Gentle whispering
Forgotten

Flickering street light
Breathing
Footsteps
Nowhere in particular
Crowds
But no one

Broken inertia
Dream of the day
Awakening
Eyes widening
Anchored heart
Pull
Pull

Yearning to escape
Confronting the past
Dancing
Empathy
Emotions are loss, abandonment
Question
Floating in the yonder

Now, let there be a story.

Somehow, beneath the following tracks of the pendulum, the earth moves. It slumbers and turns, awaiting to meet the yonder by breaking through. In purgatory, I await entangled, nearly daily trying to break free, to escape. This is no prison sentence, no "Mein Kempf" to go with the lyrics scraped on the walls of the cell. I shan't personalise it, I might become attached and grow emotional claws to hold on. But the written words are clear. In this world, this desolace, I am alone, free to weep, to crawl, to deny, to seethe, to participate, to cower. Existentialism dawned on me recently in my cell. Characterised by a shadow of hopelessness and other nasty feelings that I'd rather not feel but still are part of my available pallet (because I still decide to make use of them in my artistry efforts), the day is a process of getting up and getting through. Occasionally there is a gentle whispering, not nearly loud enough to deafen the silence, but noisy enough to remind me that I can still hear, that I am still here. It's soothing, but as soon as I turn my head towards it, the quiet that had never left returns and I am once more left sitting by myself. This is the only opportunity I have of remembering that I am forgotten. No one knows I am here. I used to not know too, then my frontal lobe developed and my place was revealed. Its purpose is yet unknown to my physical eyes, but in the greater scheme of things, I am there, certain.

In the evening, through the bars of the cell I can see a lone street light, lit. When I watch it, it flickers and this exposes the flying specks of dust orbiting around their star. I'm somewhere in that solar system, probably in a prison cell too, wondering why. There is nothing else to wonder about. When it's cold, I huddle in a corner with a make-believe blanket. My breathing is then visible, an expelling of steam from the mouth of a dragon that never really had a chance to live. Another one of my fantasies is hearing footsteps. I sometimes hear them through the same ear and from the same area that the whispering comes from. But like the latter, it disappears when I turn my head, when I try to trap the perpetrator into my net of judgmental sight. I haven't caught anyone so far, and I don't expect to, but I still do it. It's a habit of being for so long nowhere in particular. There is no certainty, everything is a blur, so any expectation would become lost in fog or amongst the crowds. There are other people here. I am whispered that they are my brothers, but they are faceless, they don't look anything like me. I get the feeling that many of them are in their own prison cells but they are always free when I watch them circle the street light. Shadows dance as it flickers and it makes whatever they are doing that much more mysterious and odd. Watching them, I found myself circling in the middle of the room, trying to copy them, but I wasn't getting anywhere because I was nowhere. So I stopped, but I still watch them now and then. But no one looks back at me. Sometimes they look at my feet, but I get the sensation that they are looking through me for the moon or some other celestial object they can orbit around.

All time is in this piece of fresh avocado I present. The inertia is broken in my ambling from bar to bar, yearning, pretending. I have my dream of the day. I am an astronaut floating in space, sans the suit, traversing distances that are relatively insignificant. I am a light, or inside a light, and I watch as faces I obviously recognise but fail to identify shimmer into view only to fade the next second. I am whispering back to the gentle whispering, telling it that I want to know where it comes from, and it replies by repeating the same question I ask it. I am in front of a glass through which I see the flickering street light, the orbiting, the circling, and then I see my silhouette trapped in the glass like some painting I wouldn't want on my personally autographed mirror walls. When the awakening comes, I simply see the light from the street light for a longer few seconds without flickering. My eyes widen then, because I can see more. Light lights the way and grants me vision. I cannot see in darkness, which is why I have been blinded for so long. I probably scared the gentle whispering and the footsteps away through my rash actions or my lack of initial acknowledgment. I couldn't see. I have a heart though, and because I couldn't see, I have anchored it until further notice, i.e. until I can be free and see and let it beat. When I awaken, and I look out at the brothers going in circles, I pull. I pull because I want to join them. I pull the chain because their own version of this great tragedy appears to at least be more mobile than mine. That makes it interesting, I suppose, and more bearable.

Despite my imprisonment and my settling into this null world as if it were my home, I still yearn to escape. Even after so long here, I do want to leave. Comfortlessness is comforting only until I realise that there is no comfort in it. Contradictions... there is an ample amount lying around in the recesses of my mind, by the bars, in my dreams, around the street light. Somehow I am anchored into a prison from which I may not leave. Here, I am condemned. I have to confront my past, not because I have to, but because I cannot let myself not do it. I cannot see anything different but darkness until I face the light. Dancing. It helps sometimes to put myself in the non-ritualistic mood that is required of me for such realisation. If only those brothers of mine would be more empathetic towards me. If only they could see me, maybe they could tell me how to find myself amidst all the black and the undone. Because, I feel abandoned. I feel an emotion of loss. No one is here. Not even me. This makes me sad. One question arises, in many forms, though. Who is the dragon? Who is the astronaut? Who is the brother? I float there in the yonder, right by my side, and I wait with open arms for my return.

Rêve(lation)

All alone then, I had to find some meaning
All alone I, sat down and cried.
All alone I, never found that meaning,
In the center of the pain I held inside.

I ask myself, why, I do what I do.

Outside my mind there's places I've never been
And walking in those worlds I'd never be seen
For people are sleeping, people are blind
In circles they run, out of their mind.

This dream we think we're living
Crosses worlds that are ephemeral.
We try to find its meaning
But we are sleepwalkers in peril.

Oh, where are we going
But the same places again
That we have never left...
When we walk and we are not awake
We're lost in our own space
Getting to each and every race
To win
Nothing.
N o t h i n g.

But we are determined to see
And so we shall
And the walls will crumble
And the seas will flood
And the winds will gust
And the world will fall
And our dream will end
And we'll wake up
And smile.

Alone

So far, now near.
The distance grows shorter, the tide creeping upon the beach then
falling back.

You see, the waves emerge in the distance,
Armed waves, white foam of thunder, ready to smash, slam, swipe, swell, singe
And they come in waves, the squadrons;
As they get closer, you can see the soldiers
No faces, but they're there, advancing, flags held up high beyond sight.
Those were white.

The shore is silent, awaiting.
War,
They hit, they smash, slam, swipe, swell, singe,
Here as they did there, indifferent.
In war, there is no celebration of life.
Here, there is life, and it goes on,
Unlike war.

The battle moves with the moon, up and down.
Terrain is conquered, lost.
Castles and other temporary constructions are destroyed and
reduced to lumps, to be evened out and rebuilt
In circles.

When the moon is at its bright height and round
I stood awatch, the waves coming on and on.
Poor visibility? Darkness hid the illusion of distance
but what I needed to see was there.

Note here that this is a sight I met in childhood:
Evening, staring out towards the sea, waves coming forth
crawling onto land and spilling their lonely secrets upon surfaces and
unsuspecting beachgoers.
Alone, that's how I felt, because I couldn't see anything past the blanket of night.

Alone, the feeling.
The answer, alone.
You, look. In the word. Alone. Look. Pair the L and split.
Oh, it fits :)

The sight is here.
It is a feeling of sadness, of being small.

Tiny.
Tiny.

Everything is. The waves, the moon, the darkness, the light, the sand, the water, the wind, the unmentioned.
Yet we weave all these things together into our own blanket and we hide either under it or from it. We think we are insignificant, minuscule, wee (in more than one sense). We could just as well appear to be that. If I think I'm bigger than that, then I'm delusional. If I think I'm unworthy or pathetic, then I'm delusional, too. If I simply am, the world around me is too. I appreciate the sight because I have learned that while the waves crash ahead and everything is large and small, I am witness to it. It occurs, and I can see it, witness it in its presence. Its emptiness, its hollowness is not a feeling of lack. It is a feeling of completeness. Nothing, yet everything.