ir a principal |
Ir a lateral
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.
The sheet of reason folds between
and fiction crumbles to each side
a folly souring, tumbling,
catching on to the soaring in vain.
Below the sun, within my insistence
lies a man, enfleshed and walled in
corroded
a chord struck from his cerebellum
into the seething feelers, his doormat
feet, his welcoming opportunities for
breaking communication.
He is a careless depiction of truth
looking at itself in a shard of ice,
aware of its forgetting consciousness,
lost in the colder opposition.
Bowed down, he personifies a scrawl,
a tumbleweed fitting sideways into a
pax-deprived corpse.
Tactile
voices squint at his myth,
persuading him to forget his doings
to welcome his waitings on the stool,
going outward into memory's friendship
dawning again after a night of
being awake, faced.
This is how it feels, to be embraced
by the denied self, watered by feeling,
dowsing already ashes,
already stinging because of rifts and
supposings.
I frowned while the souvenirs
were reminisced and corporeally
timorous, before they synchronised
and came together a paradox.
I ask you now to sit with your reflection,
walking in the difficult directions
to the birth of a man of meaningness,
presently absurd
and living lives and life
as skinned synonyms.
Freshly ripped wings from my back,
at least I can walk
like a man still bleeding;
I cannot fly
missing wings once attached.
Trail shivers in the air
it follows you walking away
it follows as if I were following you
but I cannot lift my spirit
as you stretch out the horizon
and mark the path in my ink.
I'd follow it to find you
but I feel you are
not to be followed;
Instead, I step into another way
clean of knowing;
maybe walking along
I'll see you in my periphery
an empty sky between us.
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.
Can you imagine, how it feels, the day you decide to walk on by, past excuses, past the little cowards of encouragement, through the wispy veil of fear, and out into the light? There, where the rain reminds you of rebirth and not the gloom of past days kept sickeningly frozen, you'd finally see me. Not with your eyes, but with your breath. Not with your ears, but with the thousandths of inches of spaces in between your freckles. You'll realise that death parted us not, but that we forgot to laugh our puerile confusion away. I'm smiling as I write this. I remember what it was like, before we lost ourselves to who we weren't. Funny moment. Funny timelessness. Inoubliable, yet it passed and the skies felt grey when drops dropped from it. What happened?
What happened to us?
I am here, in the sentiment of the day, experiencing fullness to the rim yet patiently waiting to overflow; for you, to come beyond the doors. To smile. A genuine regard never looks at something, but beyond it. When you look him in the eyes, you but gaze into me. You hate him. And you fight for him because you want him close to you, you want to prolong the pain. Just days ago, you willed peace, and it was given you, the feeling that you are. And you still are. What happened that made you look away from the mirror? Did you see a glint in his eyes, a fabled attraction, the hallucinatory guise of attack, about to pounce? Were you scared? Were you doubtful of his trust in you, or yours in him?
This is a crisis of faith. You and the magical window. I talk about reflections, them being everywhere. Sometimes you look and see them, then a shiny surface again scares you. Because you don't see yourself in it.
But you're in them, I know this, yet it makes you want to run aground, push back the ocean so you can hide away from it. Fear isn't real. What you are afraid of, this enemy that you perceive you are, is not there. But you hate him. That's what it sounds like. But if you looked not into his eyes but beyond them, you'd find yourself there, but without the timorous visage.
You don't trust him because you don't see you're him. You lose faith in God because you forget He's there. You choose not to listen. You choose not to see. You choose not to be who you are, because, love scares you. You are so petrified of being hurt by what cannot hurt. You stone man, you can walk because your feet are not frozen. You can sing because your tongue is not still. You can speak because your breath has motion.
It's not any of these things that makes you alive, though. You know.
Faith. And Love. And Joy. And Harmony. And Peace. Sweet Peace. It is all here, where we are.
Let me show you.
To be truthful in this:
I accept myself, as I am, not as I should be.
I accept that I am loved by God/Life/The Universe/Love itself.
I accept that I am whole.
I accept that I but need be myself.
I accept those parts of me that I felt were incompatible with the way of life around me.
I accept you as you are, not as what my thoughts may be saying you should be like.
I accept you are my brother, as one with me.
I accept that you are equally as loved as I am by God/Life/The Universe/Love itself.
I accept that we but need be ourselves.
I forgive myself for not accepting this before.
Faith. Courage.
Pulled the earth's weight away,
now I've had enough.
It gave way beneath
and I'm back in God's hands,
disillusioned,
yet crying for what could have been
yearning for what I have seen,
but in pain for it was not to be
and never will have; insanity.
God, this. This has ended.
And my insides crave for otherwise,
for what I could see with sightless eyes,
yet you promised none of it.
Why did I think I could attain
what is not attainable?
How can I achieve the impossible?
And what now? There's nothing left.
He's gone, just as you have asked, loved together.
I budged a place, I lied to my own face
about everything, about possibility,
about my lack of expectations.
Yet I could not rid myself of them,
so I hid, glossed, ignored them,
and they blew up to make notice
of the mess I was making.
This, this comes out of despair.
I cannot believe my jealousy, my hate,
yet it surges and is so misunderstood
that the path's become a crossroad
with a million and two pathways:
one for me, and one for him.
I go to kill, he goes to life.
And I so desperately want to go with him.
But I can't, this isn't right,
I say I loved him, and he didn't back
and we left ourselves unchained
and I watched his back and then his shadow
as it crept away.
Me? I don't know.
Where do we go from here?
How do we carry on?
I can't get beyond the questions.
But, God.
Please do.
Please, help me realise what is not real
ain't.
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.
Faith, that little miracle,
Carried off the shelf
I don't know where I'm holding it
But, ye hover, permeate.
I am dead.
Ye know, ye recognise,
Rejoice that it's today,
That I died yesterday.
Faith, hold on to these reins
As I sit back in the chariot.
I promise,
I'll go where you take me.
There is piano music playing in the background. You try living without your other half, without two quarters of your ego. It's a liberating nightmare, a full-blown dispatriation in split senses. And anywhere you go is the potential of the moment to remove the earth beneath one of your feet, testing your balance, checking to see whether you are able to shift your weight onto the right foot in time. Watch your back, try to prepare and you end up projecting your fears onto the future, a half-wish come true halfway up the stairway to heaven. Just then, you hit that bump, that wooden plank that's rotten to the touch and gives way under the weight of your guilt as you step on it. I thought you would have left your baggage at the bottom. When you refused to take the elevator, the doorman told you to leave the luggage downstairs anyway, that you couldn't possibly take it upstairs with you. But you, stubborn and foolish, held on to it. At least half of your mind did.
But I have told you, you cannot achieve anything with half of you. It's either all or nothing, the decision has to be whole. And so, climbing the stairs has been an uphill struggle. You see happiness at the top, but it's a narrow road and you know you can't hold all your shit with you, mountaineer.
You wish I'd just move on, but so do I, believe me. Tell me you're not an idiot, and I'll believe you, but for fuck's sake don't tell me you can handle what you hold in your pockets. You have a half-burnt cigarette for your middle finger and are squeezing a removed doll's head in your left hand's crush grip. Exhausted, are you not? Perhaps you'd like me to go on, say 'anyway' or 'regardless', and just move on up the steps. I don't have to lumber your ball and chain of course, but I swore I'd take you up, and that's what I'm going to do.
So, I implore you, leave those things you value downstairs. See, just unclench that angered fist and your broken toy will roll down the steps along with those painful memories. This is about letting go of the past. You can't heave it up, heaven doesn't accept things that have passed their expiration date. You can't go in with broken mementos, or with souvenirs of suffering. Believe me, you don't need them anymore, there's enough childhood and joy there to satisfy all of the world's children that have ever lived. Have faith that you will find it.
Now that you're looking into my eyes, I want to assure you that the way we travel is the right way. Your doll's head cannot talk, even though you hear its voice. It's but a passing wind, one that will cease its whispering once you're no longer in range of its emission. So when you recall those visions and thoughts that mean nothing even here, even before we have reached where you want to go, you cannot forgive yourself. Why are you holding yourself to such an obscenely distorted standard? What have you to die for? Rolling emotions? Unrooted sentiments? Fear that you have hurt? You cannot hurt, I'm telling you, it isn't in you. All you can do is make these images in your head of being a tyrant, a deceiver, a betrayer, a cheat, a liar, a destroyer, a dictator, a fallen angel. These are such violations of reality, of what you are, that if you knew, if you only knew, you would instantly let go of all the pain you're holding on to and go up. Since you have forgotten the difference between what is true and what isn't, I've come to take you up the stairs, to teach you what that is. You don't need to understand. It's better that you don't, actually.
So, stop. Let go.
Then, lighter, keep walking, and it will feel more like you are traveling a flat path, closer to the truth.
Is considering how he can live - he.
He wants the joy of life without the pain of death.
Yet he's already taken the latter and not received the first. He's confused. But it's rather simple.
He has chosen to die.
He has chosen to suffer on the road to death.
He has chosen pain.
And yet his choice, is not one he made wholeheartedly, because he could never choose pain, suffering, death. There is something there, left, a glimpse of love, of truth - enough - to awaken him. And he will rise.
I am he. I want to be the person I was born to be. I want to know love. I do not want to take love from anyone, ever. I do not want to hurt. I do not want to distress, nor distract, nor be the eye of envy. I do not want to instill hate. I simple want happiness.
I can't do this alone. I simply - can't.
Will you help me?
Wounded is my pride that I carry with me on my back. Yes, it aches. As I am caught between a senseless conflict between the illusion of greatness without foundation and the probing lasers of the observers. The latter feeds what is seen to the cycle mind, the mind on repeat. It's a war of projection in which there are no casualties but egos. I am thus left with a mood of inevitability, a sentiment of somehow missing my worth and my devotion while I am carried, weightless, to a new place.
I imagine I am floating, drifting, going where the wind takes me. It's quite apparent in this state that my emotions have been numbed and distanced from the limbs of my body so that they merely feel within me, without attachment. As peculiar as this may be, it is close to a freedom I did not envision. I can smile, but I do not find a drive to. My pride, the fortress of it, is crumbling into the dust from whence it manifested itself. I could shed tears if I held on, but I couldn't. I let go, and in limbo is not where I expected to be. I feel relieved that I was not suppressed aside and merely left to walk out through the gates as the walls burned and the sky turned a dissimilar shade of blue. I did not come out on horseback or in a carriage named Peace. I simply ambled down the path and the threshold was passable. I went through and in the next few shots, the citadel behind me, is falling. Falling.
I am no more. No more.
There is nothing left in the wreckage. The ruins deconstruct themselves as effervescent structures. Out of mind, they go. The dust cloud is clearing and soon the way will be free of distraction or blurriness. There will be vision. There will be truth. And there will be no corners nor shadows where there are no walls. No places for fear to hide, it has to finally see itself under the yonder, among the plains.
This place, the barren, the past forgotten and the now remembered, has always been here. From here, do I truly begin. As the seed in the soil, I lift up through to the light, and I flourish, unhindered. In this empty place, a wonder grows.
Suddenly, I see the things I used to see so differently,
I feel as if I've found a new reality.
Suddenly, the noise outside my window is a symphony,
A symphony of endless possibility, right in front of me.
Suddenly, I understand the meaning of eternity.
I'm reaching out my hand to touch you,
Now I see, suddenly.
Worries have traveled far
Clutched in my tired hands.
I have been waiting so long
To let go,
To let them go.
Hills became mountains to climb
When my burdens held me back.
But that's all gone now,
In the past,
I've let it go.
Aching whispers, breathless gasps,
I couldn't hear the silence behind
So I turned off the set.
Eyes up high,
I said hello.
And my understanding descended,
And I knew this:
The baggage that we hold on to, the past that we cling so dearly to, is gone.
I am not in any way special and it's not in the way I dot my i's or draw the tails of my y's and g's and j's that you can see this. I am addressing you because I don't want to bother anyone else with how I feel. But I do need to say what I will so here goes. In advance, thank you for being, here and everywhere else that is here.
There is no one else. Or there is only everyone else and no me. Yes, it's fucked up, this perception, but I have to unravel its not so I can move on. Hold on through these metaphors, please.
I don't understand things anymore. Being happy, laughing, talking, dreaming... all ephemeral things. I meet with friends and we talk and we laugh and I put on a face that doesn't give much away... I kind of like it that way - locked in prison keeps me out of everybody's way. But that said, I, I, am still here. I can accept that this is my defense mechanism, my protection which I place before everybody else like a filter so that my shielding is justified and so that I can say to myself that there is a real reason why I am acting this way but that I don't want to reveal that reason to anyone lest they crush me in their judgment. Yes, it's misperception, I can tell. That said, I don't wholly believe it is, so here I am canvasing it so I can see it, and realise it, and receive the answer I am asking for. And I'm not checking Facebook while I type this. But if everything is fleeting because it's unreal, what the fuck is the point of being here, relating to people, encountering, crossing paths et al. What? I am convinced there is a point - something I should let go of lest I try to find it and desecrate nothingness into more nothingness. If I go searching in this split-mind state, I will not find peace. This point that I am meaning, is not necessarily a cliché of a life purpose, but some direction, some way that doesn't involve emphemerality, sadness, being upset, lost souls, loneliness, envy, abandonment, jealousy, drama... something that appears metaphysically like truth or love but that actually is here. I know it's already here but I need to KNOW it. I still hope that there is that. It must be, after all is said and done, something like that there. So what must I do to reach it? "A Course In Miracles" says it's already here and has always been and will always be. How have I become so lost if the answers are right here?
Am I always looking away but never here? The answers are never anywhere else but here? I can accept that, but I need, again, to KNOW it.
The truth is, I've been hoping for things, for selfishness to go away. There's this fix I have with attention. I see reflections of it in my life currently. People that want my attention for a heart-to-heart conversation or for help with their assignment... they get my attention, because I give it to them. People that exhibit a thirst for attention, that don't stop seeking when I tell them to, that maybe are addicted to it... they also get my attention, although in a limited form because I get defensive too and put up a shield that could be referred to as ignorance. Where do I go from here? Because, I'm currently starving myself of attention, knowing that because I'm not getting it, I'm not feeding my ego. Subsequently I am becoming quite depleted and lonely, because without my ego sucking up attention from others, it's dying in abandonment. And these are the feelings that I feel: loss, doubt, abandonment, loneliness, jealousy of others who gain attention... I feel like no one really needs to listen to what I have to say because me saying anything will be my call for attention. This could be as well. But what I really really want, is assurance - to know that what I am going through will pass. The way out will reveal itself when it is time for it to be revealed. Now, I am witnessing the self-destruction of ego and it feels like it's killing me too. But it's not.
Heaven bent to take my hand And lead me through the fire Be the long awaited answer To a long and painful fight Truth be told I've tried my best But somewhere along the wayI got caught up in all there was to offer And the cost was so much more than I could bear
I'm sure if I ask my friends about aid in helping me they would be supportive. But I don't want to do this because it would be attracting attention which will satisfy my ego... Not yet. I don't want to be selfish. I don't want the attention. But my ego does. But my ego doesn't exist. My feelings are but residue which I believe in. So how do I let it go? I have asked and have received.
Be happy.
Live the life that you want,
Don't you ever, ever
Let anyone tell you you can't.
Be happy.
Be brave.
Open your eyes and see ahead,
There are a few that are left.
Stand strong.
Don't look back
Hear them saying things to you,
Watch their lips move
For they are talking to you.
They see you.
Be happy.
Be wise.
Carry on.
Be happy.
Laugh a little
There's nobody here to cry
With you, no tears to be shed.
It boils down to the point
Of what was done and what was said...
Believe
Believe there's a chance for you
There's a place where you can go
There's a light shining the truth.
And believe in yourself.
There's no answers to be seen
But known.
But found out
By those who seek.
Be happy.
No path can ever disappear
No world can chain you up in darkness
But the one you hold most dear,
And you know that I care
You know that I'm behind you
It's just a little hard to bear
When I see that you're gone
Among the flames I see you're done.
You're done.
You're gone.
Be happy.
Raise your flag towards the sky
May the clouds part ways for you
To clear the storm that is inside.
Stand strong.
I know you will
There's no other possibility
It's a matter of life
What's the matter with you?
It's not about you.
It's not about you.
It's not about you.
In the greater of scheme of things
It's one little brick out of a building
But you're holding on too strong.
The wind is pulling at your heels
There's no mountain to be climbed
In the broken heart of the unreal.
In your eyes there is a promise.
Light the fire of your state
Burn the videos, the emptiness,
The ones that guard your fate.
Please, please,
Hold on.
Be strong.
Be happy.
No other life will come through,
Your success is not a battle
When it's already part of you.
Be happy.
Laugh a little at yourself
It's just one step closer
And you're off the edge.
Be happy.
Take the leap.
Be happy.
Make the journey.
Be happy.
Cross the bridges that you've burned
For fire cannot touch what can't be hurt.
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.
Time, it goes slow sometimes and faster other times and each way it goes, whether backwards or forwards, we all know that one way or another it's going to leave us hanging in the balance if we believe it really can go both ways, either ways. But not way, it can't. That would not be controlled, like is the fighting now of the brain of the whole of the wow I am writing this fast and I feel like maybe I'm making a run-on sentence now. So. Pouvons-nous vraiment perdre notre tomps en faisant n'importe quoi? Qui sait? Ok so this is my attempt at continuing and following the thread that I am subconsciously yet automatically making. Go on, the camera is panning, tracking each movement along the line, and these words you see here are the voiceover that accompanies the lovely images you see in your head. Tick. Tock. Please, this isn't any time to have one-word sentences that aren't really grammatically correct but at this time there is little care for such things. I'm still heaving that emotional brick I exposed last night, it's still crushing me - because I let it. I don't know how to stop it even though consciously I should, I don't want to listen to anyone tell me how to do it because I think I have to already have the answer yet I'm not really in the mood to listen to myself because I don't trust myself enough in order not to get into crap. So here's the predicament then, why this wall of text is so long, is because the thread goes on and on until someone decides to cut it, which probably will be me, but it might also be circumstance in which case it is me in the guise of something that is not me. Hear hear, I'm confused too. Should I go out clubbing? Drinking? Partying? I remember the ball last year, and that was fun, except then I had no alcohol and dancing, while awkward at times, was actually quite fun once I realised that no one around me really cared about how I did dance. Once there were some girls that I liked, at one point in the night I mean, that came around and they danced in front of me. The one in the yellow dress was quite good and they seemed to actually dance with each other which if you've never seen is quite nice to watch, not because it's sensual, arousing, sexually appealing or whatever else you want to call your horniness, but because it's freeing, it's much less constricted by the thoughts of others. I.e. they don't care what you think about, they just dance, and they move with the flow. I wished I could do that, I wasn't very good at what I was actually doing there because I got held up by my embarassment and my surprise that they were kind enough to actually come and say hi. For the brief moments of their sejour that they stayed in front of my awkwardly moving body, I felt out of place, because those girls, were cool girls. They had lives of their own, they had their own little swagger-thing going on (je ne sais pas si j'ai utilisé le mot correctement mais ça ne fait rien maintenant) and I felt included by their presence. Then they left, so I turned around back to my circle of awkwardness where I felt less awkward because the awkward friends that were dancing were awkward themselves and I felt like I was dancing better because I didn't look quite so awkward from my eyes compared to them. But of course, back then was still prime ego time, which means my eyes weren't quite open to what I was doing. So then the question arose lately whether I want to go clubbing. Odd, there's people that say they want to see me get drunk, so maybe I might be a happy drunk, but hopefully not an aggressive drunk or an emo drunk... I don't think I would fall into either latter categories but you never know, I might be hoarding emotional turmoil for revenge on some unsuspecting citizen. I don't think I can pull off the Veronica Mars quips and smart-ass comments so I'll just keep going on my own little train of thought and not tell myself that I'm Veronica Mars, because I'm not. She's funny, she's not real. I'm. I am. I am. Ok, the more I say that, the more weird it sounds in the eyes of me seeing through what I perceive are eyes of others. I tend to do that, look at how other people look at me. It's paranoia, that's what it is. There's this girl that I want to ask out, because she's great, funny, modest, smart... I feel she knows a lot about herself and that's what I think really attracts me to her, besides her visual appeal, which there's plenty of so I don't need that box ticked especially, but in this case it is (yay). Still I don't know if she likes me because she's into her own little things and I don't think I fit into her wall of text if she ever did write one. Possibly not. I act different, I say that a lot, and if you know how I act around people you would be able to tell that I did act different. Why do I act different - and why am I so scared of really opening up to people? I don't think people will approve. It sucks when you're in the world and you want to open up to people but just before that you uncover a certain barrier, a glass piece that has needles in it. They sting if you get closer. Magnetism pulls you closer, but you can turn the switch off with a quick shot of alcohol probably. I don't really want to lose control. I fear that if I'm drunk people might actually get to know who I really am and will push me away because they will find me different. Two things though - can you get drunk and actually show off who you really are? I think that's a good question because it's honest and you can tell what others would be thinking of you. I sound like Christopher Boone here, Asperger's? *shrug* I want people to know who I am. I want to be authentic with myself. I know some aren't quite yet ready to accept, but I think those that I do meet and connect with are. The consensus is that I act differently because it's a mechanism for security - if I'm funny, people like me, I make friends, I am happy for a time. But it's not real, because while around people I am mostly funny, jokey, sarcastic-at-times, it's not really me, it's just designed to get them to like me because if they don't I'll be a sore loser that's alone and has no friends. Pathetic. I would call it scared, actually. I'm just terrified inside. It's not quite the excuse I was going for but it will do. Fear ain't real, yet I believe it is so I place my belief in it and voila, life threatening situation sentiment. It was so easy to slip that coin into the slot that I keep doing it on and on... someday, now, I wish I wish I wish now, it would be now... that I save my imaginary money and stop gambling with what I think is real. Where to then? Where to? Hitchhiking somewhere maybe? I am scared of what might happen, and so we come to the point where I would say something inspiring so I can conquer my fear. There's nothing really I can do, but shatter the glass, be who I am. After all, who I am has no requirements. I give love to people and allow them to be who they are, for the hope that they would do the same to me. And if they don't? If if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if. If then clause. Yeah. If I go clubbing, drink, relax, dull the barrier, I could run through. Oh here's what Blaise Pascal has to say, according to the calendar.
"We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us from seeing it."
This tells me that when I am not inebriated is the best moment to be who I am. That way, they can get used to me - not that there's anything to get used to, but I seem to think there is. Seriously, the glass pane I put up for my own protection early on in life, has to come down. It has to. It has to.
From my perch against the wall on my bed, I see the clock. The clock is asleep. Against the white background, the numbers and lines almost impose themselves into my view, watching. Each second, the long black line matches up with one of the short lines, and my memory of the movement from what was to what is chains my gaze and slowly turns my insides. Yet I notice the light reflected in the convex transparent plastic that shields the numbers from escape. The lamp on the ceiling, there, it glows, and you can see a halo around the light bulb's light.
Meaninglessness? Take your vegetable from the pile and carry it around with you. You may like to eat it, but maybe not. I've got this emotional brick heaved upon my chest. I don't quite know how to remove it. Its chemical make-up is not something I learned about when I did science in high school, so I'm trying to make up for that now. The sentiment is round, with uncertain borders. Those blurred distinctions between the emotion and the beyond makes me feel like somehow I am connected past my body. What does it feel like, you may ask? Hold your chosen vegetable in hand while you read below.
Palms, hands, of a person you love are pressed on top of each other, on top of your chest. CPR? Seems like it at first by the initial pressure, but this misperception is quickly dispelled as you realise the hands are not coming back up. Held down they slowly are crushing the field of my body. Pulses, from lighter to stronger back to lighter then the dial turns back on stronger and it's jammed. Why? Why do they want to cut your breath? What is it that they want from you? Will your death solve any problem in their life? The questions come but aren't verbalised when you realise that it shall not be a quick kill. I never wanted it to be a death in the first place, just idyllic heroism. It seems that tape I recorded for myself is bringing itself into the world in the form of emotional pressure - since it never took a tangible form. The energy has to go somewhere, and this is where - in the hands of the one you tried to save, trying to save you, because you want them to care so much for you that the emotional brick presses harder the more you think about it. Such weight, and only from a desire to be wanted. In my idealised dream-like scenario, I save the person, I am the hero, and they are grateful. But I am not, it is not enough, so I have to rewind and re-record what happens again, to add a touch of drama, a tinge of emotion, a hue of magic here and there and whatever song I painted can be displayed on my headboard. A failed wish. It's not satisfying, the fake, the illusory. The reality of it cannot exist, but I would have liked it to. Consciously, I do not wish it real, and I know I could not. Unconsciously, I dream and the tape repeats, each time slightly altered but the same heroic features are present. It's draining to believe something is real when it is not. The result of my fantasy, my fiction? This emotional brick, appearing lovingly human, is in fact nothing but an illusion created by me to satisfy an unexpressed-until-recently desire. Connection, love... Dreams do not become reality - something unreal may not become real, for they are of different Orders of Reality - of which only one actually is real. Reality becomes reality. If I can dream it up, reality responds with the feelings. Created to address the unreal, the energy is built and not expelled because it is unfulfilled. Those hands pressing down on my chest, then, are pushing down only because I refuse to let go of the dream, to let them dissipate and be fulfilled. I take a breath now.
It's scary, you know. It makes you feel trapped, violated, in need. In need of saving, specifically, by the bearer of those hands. Fantasy is dramatic - it pretends to know reality after all, but there is no drama in reality because there is but truth. They cannot coexist. Nothing cannot fit into all. Until we learn that, the bricks keep on pressing onto our souls, squeezing us into giving up believing into what is unreal. When we do let go, there will never have been a brick.
How do you like that carrot now? You may eat the potato now in case you haven't already started - it is cooked well, fret not about that.
How do I let go? Theoretically I can hold on until I cannot survive the pain any longer, but there is a much simpler method. Align yourself with God. Therein is your answer.
How am I? How do I feel?
Excellent question. I should be asking this of myself more often. I used to like asking it because it was an icebreaker, then with use it became a formality, insignificant. Filler. Pointless. Burden. Not so, because I recognise now that there is much value in it. It's a way of checking in, to see how I'm going. I get asked, and I ask myself nowadays too. So I get to consider how I feel. How do I really feel? Usually when I ask people they either go nm (not much) or gud, or alrite, or okay, or fine. What do those emotions translate to me? Numbness. If the person says they're good, it translates to me as an overall positive disposition but not actually feeling all the emotions for whatever reason. Splitting hairs? Maybe I am analysing it too much which is supported by the length of the paragraph if quantity is solely considered.
How do I feel? I am not good, I am not fine, I am not excellent, I am not amazinglyawesomelycoolxoxo, I am not fantastic, I am not bored, I am not sad, I am not not bad. I am not how I feel. Yes, there is a feeling, but I am not that feeling. And thanks to the lessons of Life from blog posts, Eckhart Tolle and other teachers that Life sent my way (and thankfully is continuing to send in order to bolster my growth), I recognise that truth. I do not identify with what I feel, simply because I am not sadness or pain or goodness or happiness or whatever. They are just dots on the spectrum of emotions, and I can't be one dot one moment then another dot the next. I am not a line either :P
I have come to realise that feelings are here to be experienced and thus to teach, and pushing them away is counterproductive because I cannot learn the lesson. This realisation has of course come from the frustration that comes with suppressing emotion, particularly pain. I've been trying to deal with pain by pushing it down or squeezing it with 'love' but I simply was trying to force it away which is not the way to go. If there is pain, I am not it, I am simply the space for it, and that goes with every feeling. That means that the emotion can be felt, experienced, in its own accord. It carries a message and it shall deliver it when I let it do so.
I cannot control my emotions. I understand. Therefore, I let thee be. Be.
Am I worried? I used to be, but now I recognise this is a feeling too. It's a feeling of fear, the fear of not being in control. It's funny :) These past few years unconsciously I've been seeking to control my life, control my emotions, the feelings that I feel. I wanted to dictate much happiness and no sadness, no hurt. I've been foolish. I can't do that and expect to live happily. Say irony? I can't have only happiness and live happily. I wouldn't know the difference, because if I were to have all this happiness, I would be driven to find more, higher happiness. It'd be a loop spiraling out of control but trying to gain control. Paradox :) Logically, grasping this is difficult, but life is not humanly logical. Maybe it is universally logical, but I can't justify that with human logic.
I surrender. Yes. I am not going to try to control, to exclude, to separate, to divide, because life is infinitely open, full (and empty at the same time), and united. One = All. My control defies the truth of life, and that just means I'm arguing with what is, which is absurd. So instead of using my energy to control, I now experience. What it is, life, love, joy, peace, truth. I accept it is.
I'm not holding on to pain. My hand bleeds when I hold a rose by the thorns, and it's no more beautiful. I was cheated, ridiculed, bullied, embarrassed, probed. Wake up. Wake up. I've finally received the message and it's to let go.
In times of emotional turmoil, I've been told and I've told others to hold on. To weather the storm. To hold out until the pain passes. And I did hold out and then I had my respite of sunshine. Then the clouds rolled back in to rain again and I would toughen up. Somehow, pain was rain with a 'p' and I held on to it for dear life. Somehow I've learned that pain should be feared, that I should run away. I couldn't run forever, I don't have that stamina, and it shouldn't really be a surprise that I hold the rose in my hand and I'm still squeezing.
Resilient. On my 17th birthday, I received a gift from my friends with messages to me. The first one recognised that these messages may help me out when I needed them, help me with my resiliency. What do they say? You're awesome, you're a great friend, stay true and gold. I've taken these band-aids and held them in my hand, but I always let them go when I bled because the rose was something I didn't have. So I thought I needed to hold on to it in order to have it. I made a mistake.
And I'm not recovering. Watch the red flow downstream, gurgling out from fresh pits in the earth, along estuaries in the palm that fork out into the rivers lined by flesh; the blood is in no rush as it slowly coils about the hills, through valleys under digital cliffs and out, sometimes via cascades. I see it spill. Dot. Dot. Pool.
The rose is beautiful, it is unique and it doesn't hurt when I witness it, when I appreciate it. It hurts when I hold on to it, when I try to make it mine, when I think I need to have it. Illusion - I don't need it. I enjoy its presence and when it is gone, it shall be no more. This way, letting go doesn't hurt because what is here is as it is and when it leaves it no longer is here.
I pen this note then to remind me to let go, to let pass all that comes, to appreciate all I am given, all I receive, and all I give. So I'm not holding on anymore. I float. I am free.
I've thought about this for a long time. Now is right to allow what is to be here. Having it another way is denial, resistance. So let it be. I am free.
