Shit-shat

I seem to seek out relationships that fall under my categorisation of 'deep and meaningful'. Apparently, to me, that is the form of relationship that not only lasts longest but offers me most opportunity for growth.

I think I was under the influence of idealism when I made up that cockamamie criteria. I did not realise that I was unconsciously trying to fit every single friendship I had into that tight box which visually I picture as a plastic bottle rim that remains on the bottle after the lid is taken off. So, I feel ashamed, though I should cease judgment, to admit that it's really what I look for in all relationships - the capability of space and depth so the meanings of life can come through. I've been missing the point of communication. No wonder I feel lonely, but I think I had been too proud to look at myself in the mirror and see that how I was seeing other people was truly under a microscope that sought to penetrate through the skin to their core, a core I would have taken as a prize for my triumph over mediocrity. Pride again.

The realisation came to me this evening, sparked off by words a friend who said, after listening to what I had been saying about anxiety and borders between people and my fears that it was difficult to transcend them, that to him everyone is his friend. It's a simple attitude, a perspective, yet somehow I'd erased it from my consciousness from when I was younger. I am nice and respectful to others, yet from about the start of this year, I've been unable to properly connect with new people, save for some, because I'd always be thinking about what they were thinking about me or how I should act so that I don't budge any of their social protocols. I've trained myself to see these barriers, and thus believe in them as if they were real, so now instead of seeing faces I see walls with faces behind them. And my attempts are muffled as the sound refracts.

I resorted then to a method of connection that was deeper than skin, and thus not conveyable via words, though I tried that way, too. My friend respectfully, honestly and correctly pointed out to me towards the end of our dialogue, that I try too much to connect too deeply with people I barely know. This comes partly from the belief that I'd been attempting to learn that everyone is, within, the same, one. Mostly, I believe it comes from stubbornness and fear, a combination that disallows me the comfort of 'chit-chat' in favor of 'heart-to-heart'. I'm almost too keen to have heart-to-heart conversations because I feel more comfortable discussing the meanings of life and whatnot, in my pride thinking such things mean much more than 'petty' things that people talk about, from food, to the weather, to what happened yesterday. But in truth, 'hidden meanings' have no more meaning than 'meaningless banter'. That's because, save for rare occasions which subconsciously I believe I seek out in these attempts, introspection is based on my own semantics and thus just shows up more complex images of what I believe. To clarify, a cup can be a vessel of possibility, or it could just not match with a plate, both ways the meaning lying on different levels, and both missing the spaciousness before meaning where truth resides and reflects.

This is what I learned today - complexity is not only unnecessary but counter-intuitive. Life is simple, because there is only one truth. Trying to explain, analyse, understand this, is making nothing out of everything. I had been skipping rungs on the ladder of reaching people, believing myself able to simply go to the 'meaningful' shit without going through the 'chit-chat'. Yet I see it everyday, 'chit-chat', on Facebook, on the street, on TV, among people I know. I do it, too, but there's situations where I somehow believe myself capable of transcending it, but all I'm really agreeing to is a more complex version of chit-chat, one which I'm supposedly better at because I can speak formally and write poetry and think about different perspectives. But this stuff, even at this level, doesn't mean shit. It's just advanced chit-chat. Shit-shat. Sometimes there is truth being pointed to, yes, but mostly it's just an egoic attempt at feeling superior to others because I'm so darn special and capable of speaking in such rhetoric that you can either awe at or participate in. You don't get to know me better that way though, you just get to know my ego.

Bullshit. People are people, not fulfillment-givers. And if we are all one, then we are all connected to each other anyway. Talk is just a way of becoming aware of that connection. Shit-shat is a fancy way of asserting I'm better than you. Which I am not, but my ego's suicidally argumentative. But I'm not my ego. I am not bitter as a host for the insane. I'm simply there.

That's what I want confirmed anyway though, that you're there, when I talk to you. I try to be there when you talk to me. Sometimes I'm out back watching my ego shit-shat with your face, and my attention's swiped. I have this big idea that when you talk to me I'm going to have an epiphany and you're going to give me the answers to the problem that I've labelled 'life'. And if we do get to have a heart-to-heart, it'll be idyllic and wonderful, and we'll be vulnerable but strong (but it will be more of an ego-to-ego, permissibly self-conscious only because one ego believes the other to be more flawed than itself).

I'm just trying to understand this, that's all. Or am I? I don't know. I'm still shit-shatting.

Lack Thereof

Words,
and in the spaces in between,
mines:
to be careful where you step is to
step where lines are dreamt
but soon forgotten.

Words,
and the eyes that read them,
signs:
to understand means to stand
under the post and point in
the right direction.

Words,
and where the letters meet,
bridges:
to speak is to move across
incorporeally into another's
set of teeth.

Words,
and behind the physicality,
thought:
to be or not to be and electricity
surges through neurons and
passes by me.

Words,
and what it all really means,
nothing:
to be left imbued by what is true
is to never have left love and it be
forever with you.

The Enquiry As To Where I Am

I can't begot me, while sitting silent
waiting, praying, following a road
to nowhere's prison; conviction sent
my release, I'm going t'well does bode.
It be, asked to be begot; feign reason
to be understood not by cherishers,
by friends, by admiration's heathen
sisterhood, but by stamped seekers.
They come shape-seeking, apathetic
to yonder-brimmed apostle jeering -
desirable to who can tell the septic
from cleansed - they may come reeling.
It's where I take my place, I earn by edict that jest
to rise above the nothings, be professed things to the rest.

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.

Finally

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

Hea rtbreak
Is like that.

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

Broken Mirrors

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Exploration Of What I Vaguely Remember As Emotion

Being apart ain't easy in this love affair. I get the joy of rediscovering you. And since we're here together, let us not part ways with broken promises and lies told. We both know that light shines so much brighter when our lives are intertwined, together as one.

Insignificance belittles our magnificence as artists, not as works of art, although we are neither, and one more than the other. Flattering smiles, brushed cheeks and unknowing, the singers make up songs about us, about themselves.

Everybody knows that nobody really knows. Somber messages are drunk, and being sober pushes us to drink further from the chalice of poison. I don't understand where the soliloquy began but there was a sound at the start. This petite utterance was a golden voice in the sun, glaring at the darkness as if it wasn't even there. Such bravery. Why do we not share the moments when we are together and how can we not realise the futility of estrangement, of difference, of any reasons why there is no celebration? It's not always going to be someone's birthday, but there is a day today, and here it is.

Embrace suchness, for it creates a sensation of being, and that means it's one step closer to reality than potions and cocktails. Makes us feel rather than think. We both like pressing the keys instead of voicing it, and as such we both /emote rather than shine a light on our sentiments. Let's not run away again, we are in this together after all. We can hold each other's hand and be there for each other, not just like in the movies because the movies are movies. But because we care.

Language betrays. Questions are asked, and answers are given so more questions can go back to the end of the queue. Now there's no point in placing the blame. Hurt is just an empty plastic bag in the wind, hiding silhouettes of nothingness. The people are the ones who shine. Their spirits glow, and I can see. This is vision, when punctuation ceases to mean anything.

To Irk The Sum

Irk: Poetry about love, I could be writing. But you know what? I'm not.
Sum: Yeah, I know you're not.
Irk: How do you know I'm not? You're not even looking at me?
Sum: I know I'm not looking at you, you don't have to talk to me in that tone.
Irk: So then how do you know?
Sum: Well, you can't really write anything about love unless you've experienced it.
Irk: And why do you assume that I've never experienced love?
Sum: Because you just got defensive and said what you just said. You've never experienced it, you don't know what to write about, and besides... if you really sat down to write something about love you would think long and hard and longer and harder and then give up and talk to me about it and we would have a conversation like the one we are having right now except I would pace myself better and try to not have run-on sentences.
Irk: Your wisdom, or lack thereof, bores me. I'm telling you I know what love is.
Sum: Oh you do? Well... what is it?
Irk: Why should I tell you? You're probably going to annoy me once more with your useless banter and return the question back to me like an unqualified psychotherapist.
Sum: Thank you for that pathetic attempt for an insult, but you don't really expect me to change the subject now, do you? What is love?
Irk: You're full of something, you know that?
Sum: Yes, so are you, that's why we are here together.
Irk: We are not here together, you are here with me, for a good reason I imagine.
Sum: Maybe. What is love?
Irk: Maybe... that's all you have to say?
Sum: Stop avoiding the question. What is love? Or maybe you don't know but are too pathetic to admit it?
Irk: Excuse-moi, but if I was pathetic I wouldn't have such clever self-conscious dialogue to entertain you with, now would I?
Sum: I don't know. I don't care. What is love?
Irk: Please, let's not board the apathetic plane lest we crash into the sea because we stop caring about living.
Sum: Don't worry, I don't have enough money to purchase tickets. What is love?
Irk: I'm not worried, we cannot fly anyway, we don't have passports.
Sum: No further distractions. What is love?
Irk: Agreed. Love is.
Sum: Lovely.
Irk: Is it now? Do you know what love is then?
Sum: I was asking you the question, you were answering. No cheap psychotherapy, tyvm.
Irk: Ok. Then do not interrupt if you want to know my answer.
Sum: How do you know I want to know your answer?
Irk: Well you are asking me a question, are you not?
Sum: Am I? Am I now? Am I?
Irk: Are you?
Sum: Je ne sais pas. I don't feel like I was asking you anything.
Irk: Maybe your memory was shot down by your feeble attempts at humour.
Sum: Possibly.
Irk: Yes.
Sum: Mmm.
Irk: Mm.
Sum: M.
Irk: Did you just say M?
Sum: Yes, yes I did. Appalled?
Irk: I would be if you didn't expect me to be appalled. I see you are, so I am quite ambivalent.
Sum: Serious? How so?
Irk: I don't wish to bore you with the details like you have been boring me with your questions for the past unspecific amount of time.
Sum: Well that could offend me, but it does not.
Irk: I'm glad, no words can hurt you.
Sum: Nope, I'm invincible.
Irk: Yes, and so am I.
Sum: We are.
Irk: I am, you are, we are. All three pronouns we can use to describe our isness.
Sum: And isn't it funny then how we can never really point a finger to it?
Irk: I haven't quite been able to laugh at that yet. Not yet.
Sum: Really? Don't you think it's funny?
Irk: That we go around in circles?
Sum: Isn't that conversation? We take turns speaking?
Irk: Yeah, you talk, I talk, you talk, I talk, and from the point of view of the collective we both talk and that is our conversation and it goes in circles because it goes from me to you to me to you to me to you to me to you and it goes on and on like that until we stop.
Sum: Right. You would rather be doing something else?
Irk: Yes. Feeling.
Sum: You want to write poetry, don't you?
Irk: Yes. Poetry.
Sum: About?
Irk: Oh, you know, something that I can write about. Something I can express and look at and see how I feel about while I write and while I read it later if I get the chance. Something about nothing in particular, but something nonetheless because nothing in particular is really worth talking about unless it is something relevant.
Sum: Care to elaborate by giving an example?
Irk: I don't wish to elaborate because that would mean longer sentences. So I will be brief. I'm thinking... I'll write about love.
Sum: Love? Oh, and you know love?
Irk: Who doesn't?
Sum: You know about love?
Irk: Yes.
Sum: You want to talk about it?
Irk: Do I look like a teenager who just witnessed a shocking event in their life?
Sum: To be honest, I don't know what you look like.
Irk: Well, I do.
Sum: Can you show me?
Irk: Nope, I couldn't even if I wanted to. But you already know what you look like.
Sum: Yes, but I want to know what you look like so I know who I'm having this conversation with.
Irk: Yes, but you don't need to look further than yourself.
Sum: This sounds quite profound.
Irk: Sounds can be deceiving, just like appearances.
Sum: So then, what can we trust to be true? Oh, please tell me!
Irk: An exclamation!
Sum: Oh, oh, oh, oh!
Irk: Fear not, I shan't change the subject to Shakespearean England.
Sum: I am glad.
Irk: I am, too. You are glad. We are glad. All three pronouns are used.
Sum: Correct.
Irk: I wonder sometimes... who I am...
Sum: I wonder that sometimes as well.
Irk: Have you found an answer?
Sum: I don't know what to tell you. I know the answer already but it's like I want to check it with something and every time I try to find something to compare it against, it doesn't quite match up.
Irk: Is that so? Why is that?
Sum: Well, let me elaborate. There are others that I see around, and I try to get to know them and I make friends with them and if we are good friends then it means I am closer to finding a match to who I am. Then there is money, which I try to use and buy things for myself and when I have these tangibles I try to see how I feel when I have them.
Irk: And how effective has this proven to be?
Sum: Not very, I still don't have an answer.
Irk: You know why?
Sum: Yes.
Irk: I do, too.
Sum: Have you had much success in that department?
Irk: Kitchenware?
Sum: We are not in Briscoes. I mean with the question of who you are.
Irk: Yes. I have had as much success as you.
Sum: Somehow I don't believe that.
Irk: Neither do I... and I was the one that said it.
Sum: Why did you say that?
Irk: Je ne sais pas.
Sum: You should write your poetry now.
Irk: I should? Why do you say that?
Sum: Thank you for repeating my question, we have once more arrived at a common point in the circle.
Irk: We are always at the same point in the circle. The Earth moves. We don't.
Sum: Sometimes I don't even think we are on the Earth.
Irk: Why?
Sum: Because we don't move. I would expect that, if the Earth moves, we should move with it. But we don't. We seem to be stuck.
Irk: You know... you have a point. I feel stuck, too. Frozen in a loop.
Sum: You should write your poetry now.
Irk: Ah, you remembered that I should be writing my poetry now.
Sum: Yes, I do retain some memory.
Irk: What should I write my poetry about? Perhaps a memory?
Sum: You were going to write about love.
Irk: Yes. Do I know anything about love, though? You were doubting me sometime ago.
Sum: Doubt is a bitch.
Irk: No doubt.
Sum: I won't bother you with the question about love then because it would take you too long to answer it and we would end up back here again without an answer.
Irk: I might have an answer for you.
Sum: You might.
Irk: I might.
Sum: So, this love... is it grand?
Irk: You know already.
Sum: Remind me, so I know I know
Irk: Well, it's not very grand. It's not taller than Everest, smaller than a pea, juicier than a pear.
Sum: So how do you know anything about it if you want to write about it?
Irk: I know it, somehow. Inherently.
Sum: This is a new development, is it not?
Irk: No, it's the same question and answer, phrased differently, giving the illusion of originality but actually hiding behind the same thing.
Sum: That is wonderfully simple.
Irk: We are copies of each other because of it.
Sum: How do you think that makes me feel?
Irk: How I feel, but I could lie to you and tell you a different story. Then I would be inventing a narrative.
Sum: Then it would be original, would it not?
Irk: Would it? It's a copy, but it looks new. Is that new?
Sum: Je ne sais pas.
Irk: We do, we just don't want to know it yet.
Sum: How does it make sense to not want to know something that we already know?
Irk: It doesn't.
Sum: Are we waiting for Godot?
Irk: On the surface, if you had met me about an unspecific amount of time ago, I would have said yes.
Sum: But now?
Irk: Just now.
Sum: Now?
Irk: Yes.
Sum: So?
Irk: I was telling you about love, was I not?
Sum: Might've been, yes.
Irk: Ok. Well... Love is.
Sum: I hear you.
Irk: I'm glad.
Sum: So am I.

Split Mind Spill

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 way
I 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.

Rêve(lation)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Paradox of None

Whereabouts would
Would wishes be
Wishes be
Without someone to grant them
When we need



Nothing.
There is no need.
Because none of us are imperfect. No one is so.

We are one. And this means that my being who I am is the same as you. I'm you. Your face is not mine just as much as it is not thine. You are whole, and you know this, because I do, and I am whole. And knowledge is universal - true - and therefore it is shared.

And I have nothing to say for it. I live joyfully. Joy, fully. What do you feel?

I am nothing
I am no one
Yet we are one
I am one
I am all

And it is thus that I express, so that I can become aware, so that I can learn that I cannot learn for there is nothing that I do not know. But I have become lost, and only now do I see the path that I am walking on, illuminated by the light of God.

Among people
I am none.
I am one.