Images

I've come to a realisation - another in a series, out now - about who I am 'not'. I wrote this down in a note to myself:

"When I stop thinking, the self I think I am ceases to exist. I am empty. Perhaps that is what is so scary about not thinking - the loss of that link to the world. Without it, I simply am - and that feels lost, but maybe it is the state of surrendering flow."

Having let go of vices and needs to project images onto people, after surrendering the idea that I cannot truly communicate who I am to anyone, I felt liberated. Lost, yes, but a liberating floating away into somewhere. I don't know. And because I haven't known for a while - though I did try - I found that there isn't really anything to know that won't come when it's needed. I wonder who I am. I have thoughts about that, and then somewhere along the track I am reminded that those thoughts matter not and they do not make up who I am. So there you are, sitting in the garden, clutching my coffee. You called me sugar. Pink lyrics. My thoughts can change quickly from one thing to another without much heed for subject matter save for a few conditions such as what I am thinking about has to somehow matter to me in some way, and it must also catch my attention. Otherwise no thoughts hold. So in my attempt to be a river, I also figured out that I am a fish, and a rocky outcrop, and an ice cube drifting, and an arrow penetrating the air. And I am none of those.

You see, I play. I try to figure out who I am. But I will never be able to truly express it. (Need I?) And I will never be able to communicate it to anyone. (Need I?) And no one will ever be able to understand who I am in my depth through an image of myself, because the image will never be good enough, it will always miss the vital part of 'being', since an image, being an illusion, is 'not'. Therefore, what's the point?

Having fun and laughing makes so much more sense now, because there are things that don't necessarily make sense and when the need for sense is taken out of the question, these senseless things somehow gain a certain sense. And there ain't no reason why - that I can decipher, that I need decipher.

The subconscious knows everything. So when I say I know who I am, I mean that it knows who I am and I only have images, parts, that I can present to others. Perhaps that's useful sometimes - but only when I can use the parts to point beyond them. That's the clincher. I've tried projecting myself onto others hoping others would remember the images of me that I hoped to have placed in their minds. Yet, I haven't really gotten anywhere in terms of satisfaction, because what is truly satisfying - being appreciated for who you are - cannot be found in images, since images are always incomplete. And I want the complete package. And to think, I didn't realise before that I was trying to get that complete package with an incomplete tool set/map. It is like trying not to think, with thought.

Maybe there is usefulness in images. I don't think they're worth discarding totally, because I think they can be used, as I said, for pointing beyond themselves. That choice of images, however, I am to understand that it is not mine to make. For I cannot make such choices. I cannot be the distinguishing force - because I don't know everything. The subconscious though, I suppose, can let me know. I suppose. But it knows. It knows it can let me know and it does let me know when it knows I ought to know. And I know.

All's I got to do is listen. And watch. And pay attention to now. Don't need to judge. Don't need to make up stories and piece things together, because the moment I start using thoughts, I block out intuiting. All's I got to do is be. Let others see me as they will.

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.

When I Asked Who Didn't Know

So I sat there thinking about being,
answering a lifetime's question
in one moment of one night.
Clarity would dawn upon me as
I let myself be lead by the hurried
hand of one kamikaze thought.
Quickly,
he said moved
through memory
as lightning struck outside the window,
inside my chamber of secrets revealed.
Come, and I did
through amazing eyelashes you're gay brainbox
angel good attempt idiot crazy gay dux
cool accent where are you from gypsy in the back of my mind
don't judge me victim my best friend sick
one of the kindest always says bitch little girl
mama is that like Rome sooooooooo smart anxious
sinner him too nerd effeminate awesome
never be left behind easy doormat door
guilty positive good with words hypersensitive
disgustingly cute Pengu overthinking
controlling liar Son of God gay
couldn't deliver disappoint empathetic Protoss
French economic historian writer
so sorry there for you ego lost wrong
and then I ran out of breath,
having chased memory to the bolt that held its chains.
He turned around, looked at me
with unfeeling
and left me with all these answers
in the dark to find the answer.

Rhythm In Rhyme

Elsewhere, in crevices unweathered
There's a box of hope stashed away
Awaiting the touch of your hand.
Open it.
In between your fingers, feathered
Light may shine, show you the way
Through 'ere hallway of darkness.
Face it.
Hold out your hand, receive,
Be whole in what you are to give
Never ask for it back, for you do have
What you give, always in your hand.

Looking for myself in empty places,
Broken paths I must uncover.
Yet the silence and the lack of faces
Yell the truth I need discover.
Trodden journeys nowhere, blind with dread,
Mirror perfectly my mind.
They show the wayward image, turned to shred,
And a blessed son behind.

The world we're given, we push away,
Desiring one made by hands with which we pray;
Hands not wounded by counted battles for control
For a say in who we are, our role, our soul.

Rhyming
Several spaces
Lyrical inspiration
No frustration
But memories
Memories

Any meaning?
Anyone?
Any certainty
Jump the gun
Sit still
Listen
Stop hearing
Listen
Stop seeing
Listen

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.

B-Side

Look at us now, chasing ideals
Thinking we've got to run far.
I ask you what it is you feel
Do you know who you really, really are?

Have you been asking around?
Have you been searching away?
Before the pain strikes its bleak sound
Let yourself find the heart's own way.

It will lead you here
And it will be great
A day without tomorrow.
Skies might be grey
No tears on this path
I won't ask you to follow.

Know that I tried to break through
Carve a tunnel to find you.
Among the rubble I discovered
Pieces of your scattered lies.
I know enough to not assume
That fragments are what's left of you
For truth can't hide its permanence
And there's not a single secret to be kept.
I know you.

In the mirror I was looking for
The reflection of my own image
I found nothing, my boat, no oar
Flowing away under this bridge.

In this light I changed my ways
Stumbling on my lone impotence,
Wayward from the hanging haze
I charged ahead with renewed deference.

It will lead you here
And it will be great
A day without tomorrow.
Skies might be grey
No tears on this path
I won't ask you to follow.

Unearth the worlds in distances
Don't pretend they do exist
Walk among your brothers well
And sing to them your wholesome love.
Fall apart those sediments,
Those illusions of real sentiments
Remember your hand of guidance be
Nothing cold, unknown, no mystery.
I know you.

Illuminate your thread,
Those false weapons you shed
Fly across the depths
Across windswept Everest.
Glow in the dark, glow
Let the only light show
Those that close their eyes
Will see through their meaningless disguise.
Into my mind and theirs.
Into my heart, always
I know you.

Every Point On The Line

Child, young, standing in this very spot,
Holding the escaped rebellious red ball
Looks wide-eyed at what could be th'end all,
The headlights bright, breaks heard but screaming not.
The son frozen.

"You're a legend, awesome, fantastic, the best,"
To the slaughter he now goes with all the rest.
From the white winter tops, right down to the basement
He's fallen; an abyss mirrors his replacement.
Watch and learn.

Those lessons he's receiving, to deduct the jealous,
Will purge him all of masquerading mind-made madness
For his fate is written-thus, that no self-made can alter.
With his secrets revealed, unhiding, the son cannot falter.
Be homeward bound.

No three, no four, none can claim a prize not to be won
When brothers all connect, correct and create as one.
It is forth that they must bring their minds and hearts
To unite their worth, meaning into a sum of all parts.
The lone fall.

His ways to complicate have been lost and failed,
The rhythmic contemplation, despair has sailed
Upon some wavelengths unreal, to mouths of fear.
The boy saved, has no need to run but be here.
He is returned.

What roads he has crossed, derelict, with sorrow,
Are lessons that remind him the lack of tomorrow.
He did not write himself into his being, but played a role,
An amnesia that he had to forget, to return to what is whole.
And he remains.

Victim Of Circumstance

Just like a dream, life is not what it seems. What happens when you go to high school in your first trimester, and you know no one and are finding it difficult to make friends because the others label you based on how you behave? What happens if one of those early days you feel belittled, emotionally crushed because who you hoped you would be did not turn out to be the reality that others saw when they looked at you? What about if on that same day, you feel deprived and lonely, on the brink of tears as you walk across a busy intersection, facing the world with an ephemeral visage, when a car speeds from the road ahead and smashes into another car only a few metres away from your little body? How stricken do you feel when you hear the sound of metal clashing, of glass shattering and scattering, of a baby suddenly bursting out crying? How do you feel when for the first few seconds after the shocking accident, your tongue numbs and your expression whitens as you look at the wreckage? And then what of the baby who wants reassurance that he or she is alive? What happens when you walk away, because the weight of the day's prison sentence leaves you unable to help because you think you might do more harm than good? Would you say life sucks? Jokingly, I might have, but I never came to the conclusion that, I would learn four years later, Veronica Mars came to when commenting on Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man". Her words, "Life's a bitch until you die," spoken like a philosophy to be adopted and lived by as a sort of life motto, a proof that there is a reason for the madness that life sucks, because it sucks. This pseudo-logic did not occur to me in such a formulated and cynical format, not only because I did not know what cynical meant, but because I still had expectations of how my life would turn out. After all, I purposely chose to go to a good public high school, mine being a 'college', despite the large distance that I had to cover with a bus each day. I ventured it was worth more to go to a place where it appeared that academics were valued highly, because that's where I would fit. I was brainy, smart, intelligent, a brainbox. I knew answers to questions in class, not because I went home everyday and did homework and extra study for five hours - I don't think I've ever done that. My tool, which others mistook for my secret, was my ear. I listened, because in class I was brought up with the idea that you were meant to listen, absorb information. So I did. Others, probably brought up in different types of cages and regimes, zoned in and out. Because my prowess allowed me to excel, even in the reputable academic environment of my high school, I had a goal to strive for, to be the top. I had come to school to learn, so that's just what I did.

But academics was certainly not the biggest lesson I would learn. My parents stressed that it was imperative for me to do well, meaning academically, and me being a good little boy did as they said, though not directly because they said it. Their influence on my values went past academics, but performance at an academic level was a strong core of those imprints. I soon found out, however, that academics was not of the highest priority to other students, which made it difficult for me to bond with others. I was timid, I didn't really know how to get along with people. Awkwardness was an idea that was previously alien to me but somehow entered my consciousness and vocabulary, and sort of then became an excuse to try relate to other people, sometimes by lying about myself. The magnifying glass I can now place on my high school experience shows me that I didn't know how to make friends and my unwillingness to go out of my boundaries slightly halted the development of my social skills beforehand. When it was time to attend my 20-minute-away by bus school, it was clear that the social world is something I would become a member of, warts and all.

My English teacher in my first year, Year 9, came to me one lunchtime. I was sitting down on the wooden steps, alone with my sandwich, looking at the library, not knowing if I really was allowed to go in there and scared to ask for fear of rejection. I may have been on those steps because once the bell would ring, probably more than twenty minutes away, I would be ready to enter class, the door being just a metre behind me. I sat and gnawed and chewed and swallowed. She came to me, maybe she sat down next to me. Already having answered questions in her class, in her and the pupils' eyes, I was 'good at English', so she knew I had my academics sorted out. If my memory persists, she asked me how I was doing. Don't remember what I replied. She then may have asked me about friends, and I said I didn't have any. She introduced me to the actual concept, then, that high school was half-academics, half-social. There was an element in this experience I never consciously concentrated on. I never had to until then, because I always found somebody to bond with, at least superficially, to fulfill my friendship 'needs'. In high school, the rules of the game had changed, because the other students weren't willing to give me a chance. Judgment had set in - you make your friends by finding common things between each other. As a shy boy, I never got to the stage of sharing what I liked. Assumptions were made that I studied a lot, so I was a nerd, a geek, whatever. No one knew me, no one cared to know me, nobody knew themselves. Some of this realisation came to me at that time. I behaved a certain way around my classmates, and like a missile shield they were in defensive mode because they felt I fired at them by not bending to a status quo. I acted different to them, I got different marks, I talked differently. So people treated me differently - what else could I expect? This made me an outcast and within the first few days of this discovery, I went home and I cried. Simple: I hated myself and I wanted to change to be accepted because back then, I was nobody. I wanted people to like me. I wanted to be known, to have friends, to laugh out loud and to do the things the other kids were doing. I wanted to belong, so I had to change. I thought all I then had to do was change my behavior, an experiment which failed within the end of that first year at high school. I didn't know how to act like someone else. I didn't know how to add new imprints into my behavior, even though subconsciously I was doing it all the time. Unwilling to make that conscious decision, I had surrendered partly to the idea that I could not change. But it was more like a step of procrastination, because I felt that if I knew how to change, then I could change. So the process of figuring out the how was the aim I had set myself, though not in those words.

My arrival from intermediate into the much bigger pond of fish that was high school made me more aware of my behavior. Hints were dropped during childhood, by my cousin, by friends, by my mother and father, at times even by the mirror. But the bombs came in 2005, when the people around me were old enough to use labels that actually dealt my self-esteem some serious damage. They were not wise enough to understand what they were really doing, but they were able to use them so they could achieve their unconscious goal of separation. I acted differently. That didn't make me less of a person, but I was sure made to feel that way. I remember once I was in science, and the weapon that everyone used on me hadn't been used for some time - which gave me an opportunity to recharge myself. It thus came to be quite a memorable blow when I was again labeled that way when we were making phones out of tin cans and string. I was paired with some guy that was quieter than the norm. He spoke into the tin, and his words traveled through our white string into my tin can. At the time I was smiling, having fun, child fun. He asked me a question and through that stealthily dropped his bomb. I quickly replied with a negative answer, but the shock waves of the blast went through me. My 'no' was almost a tremor. I felt ashamed for the rest of the day, my innocence gone.

It's true that people are allowed to ask questions, but I did not recognise that at the time. To me, it was painful to be asked questions about who you are that were marginalising. It was not 'who are you?', but 'are you...' and they didn't know any better. Neither did I.

But I came through. At one point I wanted to be a victim, I wanted to be pitied. I thought it might gain me favour, morale, but nothing like that can make you whole. High school, especially at the beginning, was hard. It's hard to be told by people around you that you aren't enough. It's hard when you believe them. It's hard when you think illusions are real, and when they do too. But suffering is a great teacher. One way, or another, life is the greatest teacher. It will teach you exactly what you need, in the best way possible. You are allowed to object, to resist, but you only would if you were scared, if you believed that there was another way. This method creates friction, pain, and its discomfort then becomes your teaching method for the lesson that life tried to teach you in the first place. One way, or another, life teaches you what you need to know. How can I possibly say then, that life sucks? I can't say it and speak the truth. Veronica Mars had her own circumstances which she had to deal with, and in her pain and confusion, she made her conclusion. "Life's a bitch until you die." She believed it, and in her representative power as a human being, it came to be her filter through which she saw her experience. You may believe it too, which is why life hurts you and you feel victimised. After all, so long as life is a bitch, the bitch has to live up to her name. You'll still learn, but in an unpleasant way, until you discover that there is a much more effective and authentic path you can take. As students, the best thing to do is learn. Then we teach. It is with hope then, that I recommend learning truth before attempting to teach it, because once truth is learned, life will teach it through you, for the benefit of all.

The Little Boy On Both Sides Of The Door

Naked are you? Your fingers are clutching down on the keys of the piano like a foothold. Why are you trying to anchor yourself amidst such a flood? You know you'll drown. Don't you worry, you don't have to go with the flow, no matter where the waters lead. There's a spirit in you, a fire, a focus that's inextinguishable and yet here you are, trying to force the world around to stop changing by fixing yourself in one spot.

You are not gravity. You're not.

But you don't need to be. Surrender and you shall be set free. You can swim, but you don't need to unless you let the waters take you. Where they go is where you are.

And here is where the key turns inside the lock and the door lies shut. You know, I probably closed that door myself unconsciously because I feared what would be on the other side. I thought it'd demolish me. Somewhere on my side of the door there's a scared little boy with tears in his eyes. He looks at me all the time, and whenever I am near the door begins uttering a cry - when I touch the key he moves his little body forward, ready to jump and hold on to me, and his expression turns grave. He doesn't want it open. He wants to stay there in his corner, safe with his headless teddy bear. I don't know what to do, because when he cries, I cry. I feel his pain, every chord that strikes within him I feel. I am stuck in this dark room, key in the lock. I want to open the door, but the little boy's fear grips me right before I bring myself to turn the handle and I am trapped. I cannot move, for fear that the boy will perish and thus that I will perish. He doesn't want to fall, he doesn't want his teddy bear to leave him. He doesn't want me to abandon him, but I know that I can't take him with me. I know what is beyond the door, but I am finding it difficult to remember as I am in the clouds, the evaporation of the little boy's tears, with teddy bear heads floating around me. I must break through. I must turn the key, turn the door handle and open the door, then step out.

On the other side, there is another little boy standing. He's smiling. There are no corners here, no shadows to hide under, no walls to lean on, no ceiling to cower under. There is total freedom, something which I cannot understand.

Who am I? If on this side of the door I am a coward, a fool, a scared little boy, then who could I possibly be on the other side?

There, I am whole.

Worth Nothing

This set of words, it speaks to me
And I hope you too, if it be
That you share in me, today,
A hope, a smile within.

I am worth nothing.
Being of the littlest value is unlike me,
For I do not reach there.
I don't chart.
And so I want to cry at my demise,
The realisation that this shallow is a pit.
Suffocation can't occur with air in this hole
So why can't I see it?
It's cause I don't want to.
I refuse.
I refuse.
I want to be healed? No, never.
I hurt and that's that, that's my life.
I deserve it, all the pain that comes
Because I make it, it's mine.

I am a creator, I did this.
The crumbling shenanigans, the apple cores...
All mine, made in me, for me
In being misguided.

I mistook. I miscreated.
But I have held on to my glass pedestal as I would hold on to a cloud.
I didn't fly, but I wanted to.
I tried to raise myself from a platform I do not occupy.
And I never will. Ever.
I can wait and repeat the cycle, but no.
No more, I'm done.
It's too hard, the pain of suffering when I defend an illusion,
A shadow of me. Who I thought I was.
I know that it's not me, but I live,
Day to day, with the same façade
The same laugh and the same mannerism
Of a marionette.

Inside I patiently await. I am here
Waiting for you to realise what is worth more:
A lie, or a life?

Brother

Here's another exploration of a feeling I had tonight. It's occurred before, yes, and I think for the sake of my inner peace and sanity that I be honest with how I feel. The truth shall set me free? That may just be.

There are people in my life that I look to and feel blessed in their presence. The particular people I refer to here are ones that I do not normally spend my time with, but with who I have bonded previously through a unity of hearts, I feel. Description-wise, the feeling of being with these people (in this case there was one of them) is one of a different respect. Let me elaborate.

There have been experiences in my life where I was bullied and made to feel worthless, less than I am, different, hurt, imperfect. In appeasement, I accepted some of these, and as I grew, I also slowly ripped off some of these labels. One that I can think of remains particularly and powerfully entrenched in my mentality. I do not mention it out of fear. It is scary to admit it. Not because it is embarrassing, but because the truth of it haunts. In some ways it feels like denial, living a lie, but in another way, it feels to me like a lie itself. I am partly scared of accepting it, but also scared about what accepting it can mean. I think for myself, I can be comfortable with it, so personally it does not bother me, but when it comes to those around me, particularly my family, I do not feel like they would share my burden. Maybe it would lift off if I told them, but I am unsure as to what would happen. No, I wouldn't be kicked out of my house or anything like that, but I feel like them knowing would shatter their ideal of who I am. That ideal is an illusion of course, but by breaking that... what is left? I worry for them worrying about me.

The interesting addition to this is that I don't even know if the label itself is true. It could be true, that is what is scary, but there is also an element of it 'just' being a label and thus non-representative of truth. The label is derogatory, yes, even though I know that what it really points to isn't. But the label is just a label, a categorisation, a boxing of the unboxable. So of course, that makes it untrue. But the implication is that me abiding by this label would be like me surrendering to a lie in itself - while at the same time, not 'exposing' part of this truth may be witnessed as refusal to accept, resistance. Complex-sounding. Paradox? I just feel this to be a challenge of identity. I don't accept the derogatory nature of the label, of course not, but the label alone could have some significance.

The aforementioned people can enter the commentary here. They don't know about the label as having had this effect on me, but why I respect them is because I feel for them a certain brotherhood. Let me explain. The people smile. They opened up to me in the past about things about in their lives that they held dear or about when they were hurt and I offered my support and understanding. I cherish those conversations, because those exchanges facilitated relationship growth. So now when those moments have passed and I talk to them, I feel a certain respect that they shared with me, that they were open. Brothers uniting in time of need. Acceptance. Love. That's what I want, and it is simply incorrect to believe that there is a lack of love in my life. But there is this piece left, this shard of darkness that is quite apparent and puzzles me. This label, which is not mentioned, but is heard. You may know it, maybe not. What might you grasp from this is that I feel I am at crossroads. Unsure where to go. What do I do?