The Happy Ending Pretending To Continue

How it was meant to be,
in my web of mind,
I've traveled searching
for the way to make it,
into something of value,
the fourth place being,
the fifteen selves really
there, standing side by side,
living lies holiness-wide.

Not all temples have doors.
Not all people rest on ships
and not all saviors dream
about their sentences.

People kill, people die.
Worship ends,
mornings lie,
mornings cry,
spirits bounce
and elves pronounce
incorrectly
the beginning of winter.

My name is
unimportant
because in your ear,
you cannot hear
but what you're
saying,
and you aren't reciting
the truth.

There's no reason for this,
but everyman's punishable
for the hell he opened
when he stopped talking
to himself, turned away
towards the bars of other prisons,
self-made men, self-saved men,
bitten man, hidden man.
Woe, man, woah.

I wanted to know if you were going to look for me
if I'd asked, I kept wondering.
And amidst this wondering, the light suddenly turned inwards.
I wondered whether I'd really wanted you to care.
Because I couldn't see whether you did, so
it left me but with wanting
and with questioning what I'd asked for.
And with enough wanting, I chose the other door.
Why do I want you to care? What would it add to my life?
Everyman wonders and wants to be taken care of, nurtured, paid attention to.
I grant you this, but why does it matter to me? I am either everyman or one.
Who cares? I'd wanted you to.
But what will it mean ultimately, because my wanting is what would've called it firstly,
so it'd be me that cares, through you, about me.

It just feels strange. Dependency calls for reassurance. It is futile, I realise now, to depend on you for the satisfaction and fulfillment of love. Grave expectation. Yet, unreceiving of this, I feel the capacity to move on, to not depend, to be joyful with what I receive from whomsoever but to continue to grow spiritually without clinging to another. You. I still want you in my life, but only because you want to be in it. Only because your spiritual growth matters to me and if I can help with your evolution as an individual then I am willing to be there for you, to love you. If you don't, then, I will not hold on. So I don't hold on to something I made up. So the puzzle pieces can fit together without being forced together.

Release.

Tous Les Lampadaires

Tous les lampadaires,
brillants,
sont juste comme les moments,
passant
devant moi;

donc j'ai sauté
dans le taxi
et j'ai payé
mon prix;
voilà,
je connais
ma destination,
mais je n'suis pas
là, dans les rues.




"Street Lights"
de Kanye West
(traduit)

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.

Pursuing What Means

The light has faded, the peace has burned,
The room is cold and I can't reach out
To grab the hand slipping out of my sight,
Too bright, too far to see into the night,
Too long to bear the pain
Of standing alone in the rain.
While life is pouring out its veins
It's still my beating heart that strains
For love, to come be my savior,
For love stares blind into my fear
Like it wasn't even there, my fate to cripple,
Like somebody quietly knows it's all so simple.
I have half a mind to see responsibility
And the other part to want the seas to part,
It's outside where windows look alive
But spirit drowns and after it I dive
To give it breath, divinity I can revive
With the hope that I somehow will survive.

Dissection

Keep a comfortable distance
Away from prosperity before
It can make potholes of the
Windows of opportunity
Through which the house
God lives in finds the light
Of day.

Sail to the sun.
Backwards from the apocalypse
Searching the advent for a
Rubber band, to hold the
Letters together when
The speech is read out
In the basement of rapture
Backwards from the new eclipse
Captures the sizzle
The fire
The pew broken
Shattered by the wrist
That shackled membrane
That tepid cork
Burst.

Keep a wine bottle in the cooler for the better days
That have run out
With the children outside.

Settle back in.
The world is wet and the seat is damp
And the wood is growing
Beneath the carpet.

Upstairs there's a man
Singing about his imagination
Soaring into valleys
That break through mountains
Hit pelicans in the eye
And startle prams
Through a hole in the concrete.

Catch this
Cold feet
In the bathtub
Masturbating
A vulture calling out
In ecstasy
Ready to feed upon
Death's leftovers.

Christian

“My name is Christian and I’m five years old,” he said to the suited man, Kirk Cherry. A boy talking to a businessman at a late morning street corner, people may have thought them related. Holding a box of jellies in one hand, the boy held his other outstretched, reaching almost to the end of the tie below the man’s jacket’s done-up buttons. The morning meeting had started a few minutes ago. The longer Kirk took, the longer he was going to keep his employees waiting. His alarm clock should have worked, but just when it was needed, it decided to run out of batteries. Time’s an unreliable bitch; sometimes. He moved to cross the street.

“Excuse me, sir, could you please help me cross the street?” voiced the boy. “Mummy says I can’t cross without an adult because it’s not safe.” Kirk turned his head slightly. Yes, he was talking to him – hand out, unkempt hair, oversized clothes, barefoot. Kirk’s pocket vibrated. He was late. The boy smiled and like clockwork, the guilt set in. He couldn’t just leave him there. He was late anyway, so what’s another minute? “Please, sir.” He moved his briefcase to his left hand and took the boy’s. The small fingers were traced with the sweat of youth. He stepped his foot once more onto the concrete, but the boy hesitated.

“Sir, it’s not green yet, we shouldn’t go.” The grip weakened, and Kirk knew he was going to have to wait. There were no cars coming, but the traffic lights were never in sync with traffic itself. He’d have to wait. Damn. Unless…

Squatting, he met the boy’s born-yesterday eyes. “You know,” he began, “it’s safe to cross when there’s no cars coming, or when the light’s green. It’s a small town, and there’s not much traffic in the morning. All you have to do is check both ways and then go when it’s clear.”

The boy’s eyes probed Kirk’s forehead – maybe he found a pimple, or a wrinkle. But he didn’t say anything. At the change to green, they crossed. His meeting beckoned.

Batteries – forgotten. The relentless pager in his pocket prompted Kirk to hurry again the next day. At the same intersection, there was the boy again, waiting to cross, once again, hesitant to cross. Apparently, life hadn’t taught him yet that it was okay to bend the ‘rules’ – that’s to say, he still listened to his mother. As Kirk approached, the boy turned and bounded with his hand outstretched.

“Hi, sir! My name’s Christian and I’m five years old.”

“So that’s your name, is it? Do you want me to help you cross the street, Christian?” An eager nod. “Do you remember what I told you yesterday? How it was safe to cross if it’s green or if there’s no cars coming?” He shook his head. Typical kid. To him, life is just a moment, and everything else is forgotten. “Well, it’s safe now to cross.”

“Mummy said to go only when it’s green. Can you please help me cross when it’s green?” Refusal would not get him to the office in time, and his pocket urged him to agree.

The next morning, there was no such rush. The alarm clock woke him up on time. At the same intersection, Christian waited on the other side of the street. He stood there on the concrete by the traffic lights, transfixed by the colour of rejection that denied passage to the cars ahead. Opportunity seized, Kirk crossed.

“Excuse me, sir! Can you please help me find something? I dropped my box of jellies. Can you find my box of jellies?” It lay fallen, rejected, nearby.

“Here you go, boy. It was just over there.” And Christian appreciated it and held out his other hand, this time to shake. How can a five-year-old forget where he put his jellies? Supposedly, he may have just dropped them without a care in his sweet momentary world. “How come you’re on this side of the street? Yesterday when I found you, you were over there.”

“Mummy said I could cross if it was green and if an adult took me.”

“Ok, so someone helped you?”

“Yes, a man. He didn’t say anything but I just took his hand and he walked me across.”

Now, obviously his mother hadn’t taught him about strangers. “You probably shouldn’t have done that. What if the man was dangerous or had a gun?”

“I don’t think he had a gun. He took me across the street. I thanked him and then I wanted to go see my mummy.”

“Maybe you should tell her to stop sending you for sweets without an adult, people can be more dangerous than cars.”

“But mummy said to do what she says, and she said it was okay if I asked the adult and the adult took me across when it was green.”

Kirk’s face tensed. Where had parental responsibility gone? It wouldn’t help anyone to go through life without learning which risks are worth taking and which ones aren’t. The mother needed lessons, too. The kid’s obedience may end up costing them more than his jellies.

“Listen,” and their eyes levelled, “Can you take me to your mummy, Christian? I’d like to talk to her.”

Hand in hand, the boy led Kirk through disregarded alleyways and buildings where there once must have been activity. His pocket started vibrating sometime but he turned the bloody thing off, preferring the solitude to the interrupting reminders of his daily routine. He’d be just a few minutes late… not enough to cause a dispute – after all, the manager was an integral part of the business and they wouldn’t function without his involvement. They might even take it as a sign of Kirk’s confidence in them that he’s letting them start the meetings without his presence. His job had always been to ensure the numbers added up properly – so there couldn’t be any discrepancies on his watch. Profits had to match earnings at the end of the day. That would come. Time didn’t matter for the moment. He was going to do a good deed.

Christian let go of his hand to place the box of jellies onto a pile of about twenty, all stacked on top of a small stone at the head of a dirt mound. A wan “Maree” was scribbled on the stone. “Hi mummy, here’s your jellies!” He sat on another stone directly adjacent to the pile, a stone part of a whole row of differently sized and shaped stones in a courtyard’s worth of grass and dirt and worms.

“I dropped my box of jellies on the footpath, but this man found it for me, and he wants to talk to you.” This is where their gazes met once more, but Kirk hesitated. What was there to say?

Just as the moment arrived, it had already left. There was no one around, no one else to talk to, no one to explain to him what had happened. But, he understood, then. The silence somehow justified Kirk’s cold demeanour. What was he supposed to say, and to whom? Christian was five. He was only five. Kirk took a few steps back, thinking some distance would help him gain some perspective. There were names on the nearby stones, too. But he couldn’t sob in front of someone who wouldn’t understand why he would be sobbing. Someone who kept their innocence alive by their ignorance to the truth would have to come into their own realisation in their own time. Kirk managed to smile, but Christian didn’t change his expression. His eager eyes looked right through him. Time would slowly trickle cruelty in his jellies until his pile crumbled, when he might build it back up.

“Mummy says thank you for being concerned for me,” said the boy. “She appreciates your care. She says she knows the man that took me across the street because she sent him to take me across the street. That’s all I need to know to be safe. Thank you for coming to see, mummy sir!” and again he held out his hand, for someone to hold.

A Light Script

When this light rises I'm restored -
I don't know how to feel though
Because the situation confuses me so.
The day takes on a different chord,
A shade I didn't play
A word I did not say
A heath I protected
A secret I neglected
A heart I singled out
A man I broke apart
All by myself.

It was me, you know, me.
Or do you?

Fuck, it seems like it can be so many things
But it's only one, everything.
And the light shines
And I don't seem to know how to connect one to one.

Lessons From Nagisa

Change happens, and even when change happens... the question that remains for us to answer each and every time, can we still love even when things change? In other words, can love be unconditional and therefore transcendent of change? Such, such a powerful question and yet the answer is a destiny-guide. Each choice foretells the next choice until behind you, a path is formed. And you can trace back where love was so easily, because it never would have left.

That was the point. Family, friendship, being together, promises of always being there for each other, the symbolism of the Big Dango Family, the father-son musings... the same point, repeated, over and over and over and over again in a variety of forms. All pointing to the same theme, the importance of love, and not only that, but the prevalence and permanence of love, true love. Love that comes as an orb of light and rises up into the sky. Love that sees through illusions and recognises itself in the spirit of others. Love that saw Nagisa rise through her sickness. Love that gave birth to Ushio. Love that remained even after Tomoya thought Nagisa and Ushio died because of him. Love that transcended the screen on which the Animé played itself out on and called my own love to respond. Love that makes me grateful to have watched Clannad. Love that lives on even after I have finished the series.

Love that reminds me to not let myself sleep and forget, but to rise and remember to spread it and give it all away and watch as the lights multiply. That was the principal lesson from Nagisa. To love. Simple, yet more powerful than these words can convey.

The Walls Came Down

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.

Inbetween No Man's Land

Un enfant tient au gaz d'échappement. Il le respire et le gaz voyage à travers son cerveau aux fins minuscules de rue, de monde, d'endroit connu et de lieu imaginaire. C'est le chocolat chaud qui frappe les nuages, et la pensule avec laquelle on mange la soupe.

And if by any chance one would listen to words as if they were drenched and leaked off the page into the estuary of someone's palm, maybe that someone close by who had auditory nerves enfleshed into their fingertips, one would realise that sense is not made by the chorus of the crowd but by the imagery of the spark that desires to make. But it can't make what it wants, only what it must. However, it can only make what it must when it is what it wants. The first part of the first statement is then not true, and we have an argument where logic takes a seat and watches bored in a corner on a fold-out chair. Shenanigans. So far, the lines have been blurred little, but the sense has not been made. Or has it? Do you get it yet? As you sit in your chair, are you comprehending that what I am writing here is not what I am writing here? And can you also see that no one is writing, that it's all been done, thought, processed, dried, revered, clasped, probed and pieced before you even sat down? Can you see I am being self-conscious? Can you really see anything?

Et nous arrivons ici avec beaucoup de temps pour réflechir et penser à tout ce que ne fait rien. Désolé si je semble existentialiste. Je viens d'être étonné par la guerre entre moi et moi-même, encore. Encore, ça survit. Mais aujourd'hui je me rends compte que c'est bizarre. Ce n'est pas naturel. Ce conflit... c'est tout dans mon esprit, avec des aspects mis en lumière de temps en temps dans mon monde.

This place is dark. It sucks. The corner shadows of the mind in which fear rests restless seem to be static to the ephemeral attempts to think them out. Glorious syntax, will you please unfurl? I don't like praying to doorways. So can there not be so much inbetween? Because it's just so darn confusing. Clarity, please turn on the light. I know you're in the room somewhere and just too obvious to see. I want to see you now, c'est-à-dire, I want to see. Properly. Truly.

In light.
En lumière.

It all comes back to the man in the mirror. I fight and blame someone else and then learn to forgive them and myself. And it all circles back to me. Ultimately though, the biggest fight I can have is with myself, my ego. Against nothing.

And because this doesn't make sense, I am watching it dissolve into the light.

The Way Beyond The Walk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Repressed

I am obviously hiding.
I try to find the forest inside the book so I
Can rediscover the mists where I dreamed I
Was not fictional.
I haven't yet found that familiar path I
Carved through the paper and roots I
Left behind.

I am clearly hiding.
I wish to discover a fountain with a gurgle I
Can capture with cupped palms so I
Can be reassured.
I walk among the wisps of light I
So dearly wish to be seen by but I
Flicker.

The June Silhouette

June has been the most eye-opening, emotional and insightful month of the year so far. It is because of conversations that I have had, both with others and with myself. I have begun to see my fears for what they are, and in this quest for inner peace I have had to realise how much baggage I carry wherever I go, how doubtful I am of what I do and why I do it, how self-limiting my mental dialogue is and how ashamed I am of it all. As "Bohemian Rhapsody" sings, when I look at myself, I see a silhouette of a man. A shadow. There is a light behind me of course, which is why I can see through the darkness to make out an outline. And self-consciousness begins, and self-discovery continues as the silhouette disappears to reveal the truth. Will I like what I see? Will I be joyful, as I have been promised?

I wish to recapitulate some of the conversations, from memory, focusing on their impact upon my perception.

At the start of the month, university courses were ending. Exams were on the horizon so it was time to prepare for them. I was able to concentrate as much as I needed and I am thankful for that. I was to discover things about myself I never realised. I was to face fears and uncover a silent vulnerability that had been building up in me like a balloon, empty inside but occupying my space, my consciousness. "A Course In Miracles" had informed me of the truth that I would need to come face to face with my past, to let it go. I had not expected the difficulty this would bring. I had been much more attached to my fears and grievances than I had realised. I was in search of peace, as we all are on any level. And to find peace, I must accept the moment. I seemed unable to do that. I was lost in my own thoughts, and as I shone the light of consciousness upon my 'problems' so had they intensified and curled within my person, as if in fear. The emotions of course came along with that and turned the whole ordeal into difficulty. Nonetheless, I went on in my quest.

I had begun talking to a friend, a good friend to whom I had not talked much before, about my plight. He decided to make the connection with another friend to whom I wasn't very close yet, and we began a three-way conversation that would last hours a few times a week. It is here that I opened up my wound. I had begun taking off my plaster, and the metaphorical blood started siphoning out. It was difficult to express myself how I had. I told them about a couple of moments in childhood from which I retained my emotional scars. Moments that I hadn't let go of. Baggage. Pain. But finally I was placing them in the light to be cleansed.

On the 8th, I had what I might call the most emotional conversation I had ever had. That night I had two conversations, one with the twosome mentioned above, and one with a dear friend who I was trying to understand, and in doing so trying to understand myself as well. What began as a simple conversation about how he was doing, turned into emotional release, of pain that I held with me. I don't know how he took it, but my despair blew out its dam and out flowed out my hurt. I felt myself vibrate within at how ashamed I was of what I was expressing and I was very conscious of how it might make him feel to know how I felt, about him but more so about me. I wondered about it for days afterwards, if it was really the right choice to share things with them. They are there for me, and I love that. I appreciate it deeply. Gradually I shed my skin and tried to understand what was hurting me so much.

I went from being "easy", two of the three calling me that although I not really understanding why, to a point where I felt "overemotional". If one were to judge by the content of this blog, one may discern that I am quite sensitive. I have been empathetic in the past so that may have evolved with it. I discovered that I had problems of my own, that I had believed in sacrifice of me for the other. I had not really known happiness for what it was but instead as a dependency on other things, things that 'brought' happiness. That's difficult to understand, I imagine. I realised my focus had become split among what my mind wanted to what God wanted to what I wanted to what others 'may' have wanted... Only one of those is true... God, what the hell have I been through?

Courage. Doubt. The first one is what I want and what is growing in me. The second is what I do not want and is decreasing. Through my conversations with the three, they correctly picked out how much I doubt myself. How much I limit what I do by how I feel. I have this filter that I send everything through and it comes out très sanitised and devoid. Empty, and I didn't like that. No one could, it's not who I am. How could I have been making this excuse? Because it was easier to than to be brave, to not let all my childish fears barrage the fun and joy of life. I am so glad they talked to me. I am glad I am learning to become more courageous, to choose love over fear.

Moreover, the conversations continued as June went on. I found myself consciously internalising my reactions and they would render me 'damaged' for hours at a time. I had been uplifted on a few days by my friends, but mostly I left myself in my own corner of the world to suffer because I felt I deserved that for lying to myself, for denying my past, for not allowing me to move on. I realised I wasn't on top of the world and that I never really wanted to be. All I want is love. Love. And all I can really have is love. I do not yet believe this, though I wish I did. It would solve all my problems. But I had also learned that my problems had already been solved ("A Course In Miracles"). I had stopped trusting it at one point but I returned my faith once I realised I was not putting my faith in it before but in my own perceived weaknesses. God, I confused myself, tied myself in knots then undoing them trying to sort out my life, my problems, how I was going to come through. I know I will, I have faith in that. I have undying faith. And faith has me.

I held myself as a person who knew who they were, but while I knew deep down, I kept forgetting. But the time to be authentic and remember is now. Now I am. I wanted to be the best, the hero, the one that receives the attention, the one that is loved, the one that has all the answers. None of those came true. I know that none of those is real. Love is reciprocal. So, its light guides to where I must go, where we must all go eventually. Home. I don't want to spend any more time in hell. I was as lost as everyone else was. Finally, love is coming and washing away my hurt and the sun within is rising. God... I may look like a silhouette now, but I am whole, and as the light grows so shall the truth become more apparent. I hope all my secrets will be exposed, not that there's many of them, but that the few that remain will be known to me and if it be willed, to others. But I want honesty to be my breathing and I want life to live in reality not in an excuse for it. I deserve the best, the only, the all there is. It is not too much to ask, because I already have it. And it's bizarre to say that because I don't understand how I can have something, but I only have it because I am it. Nothing else belongs to me but what I already have. Paradox, whatever.

Love is here.

Viens

This lack, this lack I feel is like nothing that is real. It wants me to be free to be enslaved. It wants something? How does it want something when it isn't something real? Twist not, knots. Preen some feathers further away from distraction, into solitude. Crayons, landslide, epitome, sustenance, spelling mistakes with the arrows of ink. Emotion.

Compris? Moi, non plus. Le point? Aucun. Surprise!

I have said before, there is no gap here. I have continued to perceive one, for I have thought it served me, but it is increasingly dawning on me that there is no gap and there is no need for a gap. A gap is a void, and a void is empty. Why would we need such an illusion when what we would have it filled with is here all along, untouched? I don't have an answer because there is none, as there isn't supposed to be - remember, it is a void. Voids are empty, therefore as unwelcome as they might be, they are still barren and desolate. And I am not. So I do not belong there, but where love is.

So love, I invite you. You are shining your light and I am beginning more and more to see it. I want this miracle, and I have it. Love, come.

Viens. Mes bras sont ouverts, et mon coeur est le tien.

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.

Brother To Another

Repetition, of partition, of repetition... we have a mission and it is in our lifeblood to protect it.

These thoughts somehow fit together on the screen. We see them not as a whole, but as something broken, divided by words. This is how we see the world, fragmented. Writing is an excellent reflection of it; it comes from it, does it not? It is an interpretive dance without the movement of limbs. Instead, oil lifts up above water. Words come up on the screen, no, colored pixels. The brain is trained to remind us of that which we attribute meaning to, and what that meaning is. And ultimately that that meaning never really was inherent in what it was attributed to. That part's not a special feature, but it is part of the film. The movie ends, sometime.

Caught amongst the feelings of grandeur, is a little boy. He's wee tall, wee small, wee wee-wee. The youngster accompanies the desire for love every where he goes, but he knows the desire for love is simply a shard of amnesia, forgetting that what it is looking for is in itself. How then, could I describe to you, and to me, that love is within us? Here.

I know your every move, you know mine too. And off the screen falls a place of enlightenment, somewhere where you can't see where you are going but that you know you inhabit. Already, there's a search going on for shadows, in the night, for emotions that are hidden in the most obvious of places. If only you looked during the day, when there is light, when the streetlights were off. That way, you could actually see, because in the light, love is most visible. In darkness, love is still there, but it is not visible to you because you choose to see with your eyes instead of your heart.

So I ask you, the writer, the reader, the interpreter, you, to look up in the light. There is no more to your pity than your bones, your body, your weaknesses and grievances. No more to your anguish than what you invest in it. No more to your loss than your lack of recognition. The light fails to see these, and instead merely shines. One day, sooner, you will know that the light shines so bright because it does not shine through anything. And the day that you will know that will be the day that you are uplifted and you will see. The truth. All of it.

We already are brothers. I just don't know it, but you do. I'll find out though, and you will have already known and will still know and when we both know, we will rejoice because are brothers. And that moment will be, and is, now.

So tell me, how do you feel? If you let it all go, it will fall apart.

But now we both know that life remains. And that's love.

Readjusting The Focus

Today I realised I didn't really know how people and life worked. I thought I did, with my expertise and experiences under my belt. But I don't actually. I have made the present into a very complex image based on the past and it didn't turn out as simple and easy to interpret as I thought it would be. So I got some advice from some good friends, about living life and breathing. They told me to take it easy, to chill out, to not think everything means something. We give meaning to things, I should know that, and now I recognise it because I see that this is what I have been doing. I am the one that places value on Facebook, on clothing, on imagery, on things said and unsaid. I am the one that allows doubts to be placed in my mind about the most trivial of things. I decide what's in and what's not. The basis that I have been making these sorts of decisions on is experience. Things I learned in high school don't apply as rigidly to life in general. For example, friendship in high school taught me that friends were around all the time and the ones that you stuck with in the cluster/clique were the ones you would leave with and that would be happiness. The world is not high school. There is a much much wider variety of forms and people out here, and that certainly adds a touch of flavour to this great moment we call life. I have learned that I have put my faith in the images I have of people instead of the people themselves. Mistake made, lesson learned. People are more than just what you see, and the surface isn't just a cloud of irrelevance. Faces, particularly eyes, lips, cheeks and teeth, are used to make connections. I've gone for the quick version of getting to know some people, straight to where I thought was the heart but was instead just a piece of paper with a heart drawn on it. People have to let you in. And I admit, there is a sense of urgency that makes my own search for people seem desperate. I recognise that and am willing to change my gears and my approach.

In the back of my mind, there used to be a voice that was saying how I was manipulating everyone, that I was a controlling bitch, because I was able to make friends by building them up instead of breaking them down. That voice never got loud until this year when making friends suddenly became obligatory and more unconsciously feared and now I thought there had to be a process involved. That was a mistake, listening to the voice. Manipulation comes from a lack of security, a fear that people acting autonomously would mean my demise. Now I know that not to be true - manipulation causes people to stop understanding you and forces them to interact with a projected image of yourself, of someone better, of someone you think they need. And this is how it complicates things, because then the friends you are trying to make no longer comprehend how your world functions. Mine didn't. I was torn between manipulation/seeking attention and authenticity, an imbalance which is poisonous to relationships because it injects confusion and blurriness, and what we see then is not what we get and the complexity suddenly becomes very foreign.

Life is simple. I see now that I looked at people and discerned what their problems are and somehow made that part of who they were in my mind, thereby somehow giving me a way into their hearts if I could repair the damage. But this is a misperception. If you only see the problems in people, you stop seeing people and see problems instead. And how can you befriend problems? People carry problems with them, but as a person who understands that they carry them, I realise that what they carry is simply their past, which is no longer here, so they are in reality carrying nothing.

The aforementioned friends made me realise this because they were looking at me as a person, as a friend, not as somebody with a perception problem. And I awoke. I was making them into what they were not. The removal of my filter made me see that I had made a big error. I was seeing broken people, but people are not broken.

So I thank you for the lesson :)

I think the following reiterates it well. It came to me in the library while I was taking a break from studying for exams.

"I want you to know that in each of us there is a light, a light so bright that it penetrates through our grievances, our guilt and our mistakes. It radiates from within our soul, so this light keeps us always warm, always at home in its peace. And whenever we are lost, it is only because we stop seeing it when we close our eyes. But it never ceases to shine, and neither do we, for we are that light."

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Have you ever been told by a day that the world is your oyster, it keeps itself together and it won't fall apart? In the moments that pass, know that there is a chance to redeem all that you've lost. I do believe in substance, in the forwards backing truth, and there's an idea that speaks in the past like a wheel. It turns. Some call it the eclipse, some the sands of time, some aren't quite aware of it. Regardless, it spins, and out comes a web that we all are tangled in, not trapped in the sense that we yearn to escape, but free because the web protects us from what is not real. Rest assured, you shall not asphyxiate because the web grows larger by the moment, always expanding, always growing. Will it collapse upon itself one day? Irrelevant, until it isn't.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. And, those dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true.

Something tells me the rainbow is somewhere behind me. I stand here, where else but here? And that dream that I dared to dream has come true. Happiness, is unfolding itself within me and this places the rainbow behind me. I can always turn back to look at it and admire the hope that it gives, and remind myself of the days when it did offer me hope. When it signed itself as a guide, a myriad of lights playing in the rain, it shone. I followed, step by step, until I went over the rainbow. It hasn't stopped raining, and I am closer to basking in the rays of heaven as they glow a larger and larger halo through the clouds in the firmament. It's wonderful. Mysterious, but a known mystery, a reminder that I've been here before and am simply welcomed back. It hasn't changed one bit, nor should I expect peace to do that.

I like it here. This too shall pass. D'accord.

Peace.

Looking Up

Living here, in this brand new world, might be a fantasy. But it taught me to love, so it's real, real, real to me. And I've learned we must look, look inside our hearts to find, yeah, a world full of love, like yours, home. Such a place I've tried to find for a long while, I've tried to locate where my heart was. Some find it in precarious places like their birthplace, some discover its existence in the remote reaches of a dream and from then on go on the search for that dream. Some Google it and get 100,000 results. Some seek and find what they are asking for. Some don't ask for what they really want, and get that which they ask for. The subsequent results indicate that it's somewhere elsewhere where I haven't looked previously. It's not complex. When I feel apart, I am not.

It's now that I see. It's clear to me that home is where the heart is, not because one feels an attachment to where the heart might be focused on, but because home is always here. I go on journeys of discovery to find places I belong to. Where do I descend from? Who are the people I have originated from? This leads me to new paths, new worlds, some traveled, some unexplored, some ancient, some untouched, some inexistent, some on the edge of exception. It's a compelling search, the search for home. I look at the yonder and wonder. Clouds mourn their lamentations and it rains, and I am scared to look up further. Then it stops and I look up again. Awaiting the lament.

To stand outside when it's raining
When it's pouring
Up I'm looking
Up I wish to be looking
To meaning
To being
To being myself,
To healing
Towards what I'm praying
About what I'm feeling
To what I could be seeing
If I was looking
While it was raining.

Home. It's where the heart is. It's here.

I seem to like to twist the idea and play with it around so that I can see it from different angles so I can understand it. Really, it's quite simple. There is no hidden message hidden in the obvious. The rain is symbolic for the 'tough' times where we forget to forgive. I am learning now. Thank you. To look up when it rains, to see that the world is not blanketed in darkness. There is light, because the light that shines upon me comes from within.

Our Course To The Stars

On a quest, are we not,
Trying to find our meaning?
Heaven shine a light
On these emotions we're feeling.
Tried and true, onwards we go,
Eyes closed to blind our seeing
We will have to open so,
To bless the world with our being.