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.

Shades

In my ego's world view, only things that matter deserve full attention. And the criteria for that is incredibly strict - everything has to be serious and important and has to have a great impact on all of humanity. It isn't that way, but that's the way I see it and that's the way it appears. Yet I squirm when 'big' events happen, and avoid them, because I don't want any harm done, I just want something to talk about, something to impress upon someone else. And saying this makes me feel off, because I don't really want it anymore. Seeing it only invites pain and hurt into my consciousness puts me off having it as a perspective.

Why so serious? A question. Lies. Good answer. What I feel the world is about and what it means isn't what it really is. I just saw a TED talk on "being wrong" and it reminded me that this type of thinking is wrong, because it sees a problem everywhere: out of any situation there is something to solve and all the little details, the ordinary miracles, are missed because they just don't 'seem' to impact the world that much. It's like a focal choice: to see what is there but not really what is there. The world view unconsciously filters what it sees to limit it to what it wants to see - events or things that can be exaggerated and 'seriousified' so that they can be 'fixed' by me. This is my ego's way of seeing things. It's not how it is.

How it is. That's what I'm moving towards. And it's not a way of seeing that comes from me, as if it was it would just be a different pair of my ego's shades. No, this sight is given to me, not needing further interpretation, not needing defense, as it sees everything forgiven. That, is what I want. To see everyone as they are, without judgment. To see through egos, to see through mistakes to the sameness that resonates within everyone.

Idyllic, says my ego. Truth, according to God.

This Day, I'd Be A Rock

This day, I'd be a rock
to who's man, I would not talk
so he can hear himself at last
overlook his timeswept past.

I'd crumble to imagination,
lost to earth voices and direction,
yet I'd like for him to hear
the watered trickle of his fear.

It washes away existence -
though does it well void distance
between what he seems and sees;
on this rock he sleeps and dreams.

He stumbles as he lays faced
by faces I long ago embraced,
and he shouts in split disharmony
the decrepit state of his autonomy.

This is no one else's cry of war -
what he bellows is a silent roar
without an ear to understand;
I merely am part of the land.

But after this day's troubled mare
in strength uneroded he's to bear
what's by grace been given,
the rest of matter forgiven.

Though I'd remain to be lift,
I'd rest in mercy to this gift,
in waiting, chipping, smoothing
edges into space more soothing.

My Resignation

I see the fear of being abandoned, of being lost and excluded from the circles of the people I look towards and see as my family and friends. I am pushed away, and no one says anything. I can't fulfill their expectations, especially because none of them are willing to show me how. Maybe no one knows, but I believe they all do; they just refuse to tell me I'm a wretch, a should have but didn't, a should be but isn't. They all walk over me and don't look back. But still within earshot, they laugh amongst themselves, shadows painted right over this feeble doormat that I am.

I hear the fear of what they say about me. It makes it hard to trust because I hear my own thoughts sweat and brood and plot endlessly (seemingly) a way out, escape from the death sentences these people utter about me. Their thoughts of rejection are loud. They don't want me near them. They don't make an attempt to understand me, to see me as I am, because they can't accept that I do hurt.

I think the fear of not being liked, and conveniently, of not being told there is something wrong with me. It comes paired with the belief that there is something wrong with me. I am wrong. Listen to it in my mind. I am scared the stuff my mind is telling me is actually true. I am so wrong, no one dares tell me. Yet they all fuck silently over it and glance with their minds into mine, shooting darts of spite. They keep me apart from all they do. I want to be included, and they shun me, backs turned, unwilling to let me in. No redemption.

What did I do?
It's who I am.

I fear their judgment. I fear that I am not good enough. I fear I have lied to them, and they cannot overlook that to find the truth in me. I fear that truth is a lie, and they can see it clearly, but I hold on to it.

I feel the fear. This is the worst, because this feels like the proof to all that they do, that I deserve this. Hurt. Abandonment. Exclusion. Silence. Poison. Breathlessness. No reason. No forgiveness. Hate. What a hated bastard I am.

I fear all this will come true. I fear this is more than just writing. I fear it has momentum, and will invade my life and spin it out of control and into death's eager hands. Then I'll have lost. As if I hadn't lost by now.

I quit. Behind some attempts at poetry, is honesty. These are my reasons for quitting. Life's not worth it if all of this is true. It's not worth it if any of it is true, actually, because the possibility of one makes the rest seem real. All this has come about because I have listened to my mind religiously, trusting it that it was telling me the truth, even when it made me hurt badly because sometimes the truth hurts. I believed it when it said it wasn't my fault, that it was all their doing.

Fuck it. I listen to my heart, and you know what, all I can hear is its beating. No shit about anything, it just does what it does. And it's quiet. The mind replays recorded messages about guilt and disharmony and weakness and powerlessness, all on fear's album, out now. My heart is kind, and at least, honest enough to let me know about the shit I've been putting up with. Yes, I am scared I won't be accepted for sharing my fears, for shining this light. I admit it. But I choose the path already laid for me before me, not the rickety road nowhere I made.

This is where I let go.

Merci.

Pilgrimage To This Warmth

You could say
summer means a million things
but summer's gone and waiting,
feels like tomorrow's thinking
like this morning's sitting.

You thought it could
but wait it couldn't
yet somehow it did,
and summer went away.

From the hill through the valley
upstream from down the corner
to the place in lieu of understanding.

You could think anything
but what would make it all better
you don't see
at first

but then it comes back around
summer
to warm your joints out of their frozen sleep.

Maybe by then,
the sun'll be out
the grass as alive
the wind forgiving.

And maybe by then,
you'll have realised
that summer went away
so you'd call it back to stay
so you'd weep and touch the ground
until you go in
and find summer again.

Attraversiamo

I couldn't compare this year to a kiss from a rose because I've never been kissed, particularly not so sensually or invigoratingly. A year ago nearly, I started this blog, this space of expression, ushered by an idea from a friend, one who walks by me. I wanted to write, so this, finally, was that opportunity to put something out there and have it reflected back and not disappear into the nether of the rubbish bin. About anything, about something, about nothingness itself, I wrote, experimentally, experientially, discovering that writing was a means of communication and connection, of courage and unity and the exploration of emotion, thought. It's a canvas, on which I can either paint an infantile abstract piece, or be blessed with something closer to art that's a window into my soul. So I can see it. So you can see it. And from the statistics that Blogger collects regarding my blog, it's not been a very widely-accessed experience, which I accept. Thus I can say that this space resembles more a spring in solitude than a photographed fountain in the centre of Rome, with statues in dynamic positions and coins carpeting the bottom. Looking for love, looking for the eternal, looking for happiness, that is what I had in mind, and each post, then, was my coin, my wish, my prayer, this being the 125th.

I began the year without much knowledge of where I was going, except to university, which was to be dreaded and revered, and therefore not very helpful as a goal seeing as it could be anything I made it out to be. Life was in my hands after high school, though I was to realise later that it was not perched warmly in my palms but coursing through the veins in my fingers, and like the blood there, it wasn't in my control. I wanted to know more about myself, so I went on and began a journey of self-discovery. Fears, shame, guilt, stress, all emotions that I had felt before, would come at my door and I was supposed to open it for them. I had some new unwelcome guests too, such as jealousy, desperation, insanity, heartbreak. I'd seen them in movies before and in the lives of those around me, but oh, I did not expect them to come caroling at my doorstep, and yet life did guide them there. Hesitantly, I let them in, then at various times kicked them out, then after pacing back and forth in the hallway, I opened the door again, and they walked back in, temptation hand in hand with itself, so pleased to see me, and later to lure me with its sex. Beyond being host to this cauldron of negativity, I had been blessed with signposts everywhere I looked, telling me what I needed to do to entertain the guests or to be a better host. Friendships formed, friendships strengthened, friendships stilled and weathered the teacup storm that started when clouds gathered.

I started university in March. Stressed, I experienced a sense of loneliness that I had thought had been buried back in Year 9. It was a bitter, alcoholic aloneness: addictive because it placed upon me thoughts I did not want to think but which I ultimately scooped up again from the sands of time and built a crumbling mound I'd pretend was a castle. Suddenly, the world had opened up for me, and I did not see myself in it. The tempest had begun, trying to find my shelter before it was too late. But I wasn't quite getting to that place of safety anytime soon. I don't think I was meant to get to that ideal place at all, and every pocket of sunshine I could find, I basked in half-heartedly, aware the rain would come back in again and I'd get wet. I changed my clothes, my approach, several times, but that wasn't going to stop the weather. So, instead of racing away from the eye, I was instead guided towards it. The centre. Where the demons lay together and fornicated. I received "A Course In Miracles" in the mail. I thought to do the course, it wouldn't hurt to find some answers that the introduction promised. It specifically said I didn't need to believe each day's lesson, just follow it. With that guarantee, I went for it. Spiritual awakening beckoned.

I don't remember what I thought it would be, but this was not it. The course emphasised completion, devotion, courage, presence, gratitude, all which have taken turns to teach me this year about life, about what I had missed, about what I have held in my past like an idol to commit suicide over. But it was not just about learning, it was also about experience. Suffering was tearing me apart below the surface, and habitually, I would try to understand the shit out of it and then it would make some fleeting sense and I'd be happy, until it stopped making sense. What I learned was that I could not, could not, could not, understand it all. And if I couldn't solve my problems, then, woah, there would be pain, content to suck on my life like it came out of my teat to nourish this cute, pudgy, infested, destructive baby. My mentality took a serious beating, and I had to question everything, what people meant to me, what I meant to myself, what I was doing, whether I was hurting people, whether I was who I thought I was. The perfect list of ingredients for overthinking, and that's exactly where it lead me. Thought. So much of it. So much of it unnecessary, because it was unable to answer those questions with certainty.

Certainty, then, came from elsewhere. The course lead me to God, or the universe, or Life, or whatever else you want to call what you cannot call anything. I was to have faith in Him, as I had consciously never had faith in anyone or anything before. Here was my life, on a platter that I'd chewed the silver from in my overthinking. Here it was, for God's taking. I have to surrender it completely, for the decision to have a transformative effect. I have let go of many things, but there still are some that I yet hold on to, still fears, lies, things I am ashamed of, things that burden my heaven and make me confuse it with hell. I am confident that I will let go of all of those, simply because I am willing. When and how, I don't know, but I do still have until sometime in early April 2011, when I am scheduled to complete the course. Past that, je ne sais pas encore. There are still lessons to be learned. Yet this is an appropriate time to reflect, as I have learned enough to witness a change. I don't know how old I am, mentally. I don't know whether I am gay, or straight, or bi, or a, or b, or c. I feel a sense of resentment towards being packed into a labelled cardboard box to be looked upon and segregated into some portion of interpretation. I feel it's detrimental to discovering reality. I don't know what specifically I am supposed to do. But I know that all the answers I need to know, will be given when they are needed, and it is in that promise that I trust. I can't rush everything, nor can I slow it down or numb myself from feeling pain so I can feel just joy. They are mutually exclusive by definition, but underlying them, there can either be unconsciousness, or the peace of consciousness, not both, always one. It comes down to the decision, whether I want the truth, or whether I want deception. Where I feel safe and secure is the criteria on which I base that choice.

The thought philosophy has dominated this period of time since the birth of this blog. I am trying to figure life out. While I watched others go on with their lives, content, taking part in joys and games and at times, their own soul-seeking, I removed myself from the stream of mindlessness that had driven me before so that I could prepare well for an adult life of doing what I was supposed to do. Quite frankly, it comes down to what I want in life, and I knew there had to be more than just chasing pleasure in a game, or a girl, or porn, though I do recognise they have their roles to play. With this realisation, I wanted the truth, I wanted what lay underneath the forms and things that we as people would involve ourselves in as if we were dolls in a house full of props. From situations, I wanted to go beyond to reason, to the mechanics of depth and creativity. I expected an intricate but clear machine; I found nothingness exemplified. Because, really, soul-searching had lead me to a skeleton of myself - dead in form, or at least, dying, ephemeral, but in essence, well, untouched by anything, invulnerable. Perhaps there is a better metaphor for that. I have touched that depth and its beauty is like a well of openness and disregard for difference. And it's really when I let go of thinking that that place is reached. The moment of experience is over and then I open my eyes from meditation and look on the world differently, as if it were all okay, even if there was fighting and politics and advertising and gore and poverty and apathy. For a brief glimpse, I do not even register the suffering, as if it was gone, and it mattered not. Then I slowly scooped it back in, because I thought I had to, as if it were my responsibility as a human being to take on the pain of others when I had some respite. I copy-pasted instead of select-deleted. Then I released back the tide, and that was the back-and-forth experience of finding peace, because it went to and fro. I want to say peace is winning, but the truth is peace isn't fighting, so that would be a moot statement.

I have been blessed this year, despite the war of worlds and words in my mind. Perhaps when one agrees to find themselves and agrees to confront their past with no weapons, just forgiveness, one is greeted with help from previously thought-of-as-unlikely places. Each situation has been and is a lesson. Each person is a brother. And underneath my strict mold of the world, that mental construct I foolishly wore as a protective helmet, I am a brother, too. In that spirit of oneness in which everything real is, I am. This lesson, I found difficult to digest, especially when there were those around me who were very different outwardly, who had different goals, approaches, behaviors. More often than I would like to admit, but I do here anyway, my ego has played the part of a victim, ever the attacked, ever the one who is hurt. Other times, my ego was the conqueror, dealing blows to other egos. Yet behind these masks, I am to learn that we are all the same. This is a glorious truth, but one I know not if I can impart but merely point to, one I yet bring to the world because I still believe there are exceptions to, even though there are not. I have talked with friends, at times nearing a point of desperation, and in those moments of vulnerability was revealed the river of love I had been searching for elsewhere, in the wrong places. In case you wonder, I talked about behavior, personalities, hopes, fears, pain, suffering, guilt. Identity too. Things I would normally stray away from but was needing answers to. And friends were happy to steer my vessel in the right direction, whether they were aware of it or not. That's another interesting thing that's happened this year, I've gone under the radar and achieved so much personal growth, without many people noticing. Help, signposts, have come from close friends to strangers to strange situations to music and literature. I figure if I am willing to give myself to life so that it can use me for whatever it wills, then it would point and guide me in the right direction, and if I deviate from the path, it would come and show me the way back after a pep talk and a realisation or two. But I don't want to create a tornado or some other dramatic turn of events. I want to quietly find peace and then radiate it through my impersona so that those surround me may find their own lives more pleasant and enlightening, wherever they are on their own journeys.

Ultimately, I want to be loved, but I also want to give love, as I have before. Giving and receiving is the same thing. In the spirit of unconditional love, I would learn that love knows no boundaries, no definitions, no traffic lights nor walls. I expected at the beginning, foolishly, for someone to tell me that they loved me unconditionally, and then I would impart all my pachyderm belongings onto their ass and I would be a free mule alongside them. Bull. Yes, others can love you if you don't love yourself, but you cannot know it unless you love yourself in some way, at least a tiny bit, somehow, tucked away beneath layers of difficulty. This year has taught me that I can tell you nothing about love as you may want to hear it. I have never been with anyone intimately, so I cannot give any stories of romance or consuming bodily passion. Yet what I know of love, is that if it really is love, that is, if it is without reserve, then all it is is a recognition of yourself. You are love. And so am I. I am writing these words but language cannot encompass such completion, wholeness. From memory, I don't think I've felt it wholeheartedly. But I want to. And it will come when it will come, but I know it will come now.

Love is everything, and there's nothing else. Love is the word that I use, but I use it loosely. I like love. It sort of symbolises peace and contentment and fulfillment and joy all in one. Perhaps it's not very focused in my mind, but I don't hold on to it. I find myself saying 'true love' now instead of love because of all the changes to the term, not that adding 'true' makes it more true, it's just easier for me to know what I mean. Like I said though, I can't tell you anything about it, though I've written quite a bit on it. Perhaps it's me pointing to it, for me, for you. Perhaps it's my romantic mind, or my secretive desire to express emotion in a world that doesn't value it to the extent that I see it, especially coming from someone of my gender.

I am grateful for so many things, so many people, some that know themselves, some that may not yet. I appreciate you, for sharing your life with me by reading this. Everything really, even the 'bad' stuff, for it came up and showed me where I needed to change. The puzzle pieces fit perfectly, even if it all looked like a mess on the floor when I began. Now it's beginning to look like what it was meant to look like, life. I feel like I am right where I need to be, and I have faith in the gentle light of guidance that I am going where I need to go, home.

Attraversiamo.

The Time After Sleep

Thoughts belong to memory, yesterdays kept
Safe in the minds of those who dreamed while they slept,
Preserved by empty lines, wanting substance. Except,
When truth saw morning, they looked away and wept,
Having spilled ink on their clouds, unable to accept
Their folly. Nowhere fear fogged. In, the mists crept.

With that haze, terror down the storm drain crept.
It spilled ferociousness, flooded tunnels that kept
The calm intact, yet not for eyes to accept
That burdened the wanderer while they slept
Unsoundly in a twisting sopor. Any wept,
Windswept, subservient to villainy, except

Hanging by a thread exempt from torture, except
That buoyant rain-defying ring. A curtain crept
Across the window, yet while the welkin wept
Was there left enough tranquility, kempt kept
For an advent. Among the musing of the slept,
Lived beyond reminders, that which they would accept.

It happened when the sun eagered to accept
The yonder's invitation. What was except
Before first light, was undone afore minds slept
And outside life's palms did they believe they crept.
They but forgot who them had begot and kept
In joy. For that remembrance they wept.

In a symbolic gest, had the firmament wept
To imitate the gloom of refusing to accept
Responsibility for the fanged pets minds kept
Out of sight. So the world was poured misery, except
Its cup had a chip through which suffering crept,
Leaking into estuaries while minds slept.

Poison diluted, life did not die. They slept
Beside each other, sharing spare hope, and wept
For their mistakes, until a glance of light crept
Into their eyes, forgiveness, yearning to accept
Their tempest as a passed zephyr. Except
This memory, only verity was kept.

Minds have ere slept and in waking, taught to accept
The traces of tears they wept. There was no loss except
Of the channels in which hollowness crept. Such thoughts, only memory kept.

Finally

Those words, those words that you said,
I took them and burned myself with them
Hoping that the pain would be great joy,
But it wasn't.

Hea rtbreak
Is like that.

I know you knew nothing, suspected some
Things maybe, but you didn't know. It's how
It turned out. Nothing to do about it, but
Forgive.

Broken Mirrors

There are pieces lying broken
Of the glass I smashed today.
There are keepers of a secret
Turning their hurt heads away
Because it's painful,
Because it's hate.
Because there's pieces lying broken
And there's wounds we've yet to mend.

There are voices on the streets
That scream something rather sad
At the people walking, walking by
Like zombies in a silent lullaby.
Heads down, they weep
For a moment of bliss
They seek. They aren't given a chance
So they won't give one to you.

Children, broken mirrors,
They'll be shattered to the end
Hoping setting the world on fire
Will somehow bring forgiveness.
Teach them how to fail
At expressing how they feel.
Teach them hate is love
And lies you still struggle to believe.

Together alone, we continue to fear
That the pain of sacrifice will e'er be here,
Seen in the cross, in compromise, in war,
Children wonder if it's worth fighting for.
Are they wrong to question it?
Is there love to ease their hurt
Or are they shattered syllables
Of words we bend, strangle and twist
To fashion the false into existence?
Well we might be artists,
But lies reign in an abyss.

Broken mirrors, violins sound,
Death inside a precarious mound
Shapes their will, so precious and raw
Among the children they hold a flaw.
Against themselves and their others
Against their parents and brothers,
They strike a shard, to ease the pains
That leaks out of their veins
And into city alleyways and streets
They bleed to hear their own heartbeats.

Unmasked: My Three Faces

I play a social game. When I do, I am lying. I just became conscious of how much I do it. I'm not alone in doing it, but others doing it is totally missing the point here. In this play that stands for life, I act as a victim, as a rescuer, as well as a prosecutor. These are the three main faces of my ego. I am slightly ashamed to admit that, but I can only see that becoming aware of how I act will help me become a better person, the best me.

# Victim
"I want love. I need love. Please give it to me. I need help. I am lonely. I am sad. I am hurting. I am in pain. Please help my lonely soul. Please give me what I ask for. I don't deserve happiness. I am useless. The world is better off without me. Give me attention. Feed me. I need your sympathy. Pity me. I can't do this, do it for me. No one likes me. It's all my fault. I am an idiot. I don't see how the people around me can take my crap. I should rot. I should die."
When I wear this mask, I am the victim of the world. I act, and I feel, that the world is against me, that I am lonely and that nobody loves me. It is an unconscious way of asking for love because it acts from a place of lack. Whenever I am the victim, the role I play is one where I project an image of disappointment to those around me so that they can comfort me and desecrate that image. I desire to be loved, yet I must hurt myself, diminish who I am, to get that love? I must tear myself down before I can be built back up. The essence of the victim is the imagining and projection of a need or a lack towards someone else who can save me.

# Rescuer
"I'll help you. Call me anytime you need. I am here for you always, until the end of time. You can count on me. Anytime. You're welcome. I will always love you. You always have my back. I am here for you no matter what. I will save you! I want to be the hero. Don't kid like that, I didn't save your life. Your life is worth more than mine. I will die for you!"
This should not be confused with the true feeling of wanting to help someone. But that true feeling comes from the healing recognition that the perception of the victim is incorrect, because in truth they are not broken. So rescue in that sense is the correction of perception, the reawakening of awareness of light. That, I gladly do and will continue to do, for it is natural.
This mask is due to me wanting to help others because I can't seem to help myself with my own internal problems. It is defined, in essence, by sacrifice, which my ego feels is righteous and pure. This is a misperception. As a rescuer, I look for the pain in people, for the hurt in their own lives at my personal expense. I want to help them only because after helping them, they will somehow validate my own existence. The mask comes with glasses because they make people appear broken, needing to be fixed. In this state, I refuse to perceive my own lack and attempt to bring out others' lack so that I can fill it. But in my lack, I cannot fill nothingness with nothingness.

# Prosecutor
"Fuck you. Loser. Idiot. Bastard. You suck. You are horrendous. You don't know anything. There's smarter people out there. Dumb shit. I would be better off without you. I don't want to listen to you complaining. I don't want to know what you want to tell me. Why are you talking to me? You are annoying me! Go die!"
This mask normally comes with the emotion of anger or negativity. I feel I have been attacked, so I attack whoever back. I wear this mask lightly, because I don't pick fights with people, certainly not directly. But it is also characterised by envy and other forms of jealousy. This mask comes with an imaginary gavel, too. It reignites drama. It is used to increase my sense of superiority or make me feel less inferior. In essence, once more, it comes out of lack. A fear response is triggered so I feel the need to defend myself. The best defense is a good offence? That's probably the principle at work. I have to be the best, and to feel that way, I have to diminish the rest around me. Yet I meet resistance, unsurprisingly.

As one may have realised, none of these faces satisfy or fill the gaps they imagine. The ego never does, never will. Switching between my masks gives the illusion of progression, but it is only until I have taken them off now that I can truly see.

I am so glad, thankful and blessed that the people around me do not always play these games with me. It sort of infuriates me that I do play them, but there is only room here for forgiveness. If I stay angry, I am prosecuting myself, which turns then into a victim mindset, and later maybe into a rescuer. There is no way to stop acting unless I take off the masks. And I know I only did it because I thought it was necessary to my happiness, but I thought wrong. I think right, now. I only have one face.

I may have hurt you in the past, I am sorry. I was not myself. Realisation has come, so as I get off running life on auto-pilot, please know that I am awakening. I am going to find the light in me, and I am going to see the light in you, both of which will increase the light in both of us.