When I fall in love it's obsession. It's "all things go, all things go." Just a couple days ago I thought I was slicing hearts and homes in two. I thought, "I have to leave this before it becomes me. And, "I have to abandon ship before I choose mutiny." Now I feel the emotions bubbling and as much as I want to embrace it, I also know that there is a time for it and love, after all, is first of all patient.
It seems to sometimes be this time of year. Suddenly I hear you. Or out of nowhere I see you. My caterpillar heart grows wings in this chrysalis called a chest. I fly far away and hope you'll catch me in your net. Still, somehow I know me. Perhaps because I've been around myself more than anyone else. Maybe because absence makes the heart grow fonder. Whatever it is, it seems to work best one way most of the time. I don't want that this time. Then again, have I ever wanted it to be an exclusive one-way street?
If that's what my desire was then what of the holding? Something inside seems to always stretch outward. I always want to reach out. I want the holding the happen. I want something beyond words. I want to show you that there is something here for you. So here are your first words. Here is your poetic prose. Your poetry that is not set up to perfect timing.
You and I will sit together. I don't have to hold anything back. Then again, I will be patient. "I will be patient," speak to me Head. I want to hold you with words I want to embrace you with arms. I have placed your name in capital letters and as I allow myself to dwell too long on it, I sense the nonfiction of feeling and the fiction of your letter postmarked to me.
Patience.
"Patience," I say. "Perhaps if you'll just wait for many days passed yesterday, you'll find a letter postmarked to your heart. Give me time and I'll show you, it's not all one-way. These words feel like so much more than inked emotions. Hold me Heart, I can't trust my emotions but I feel the warmth in your arms.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Sunday, November 13, 2016
What (or Where) is love?
I needed you and I wouldn't let myself believe it. I felt you inside me poking around and filling the holes I'd created myself. I began to open up to you. I felt the darkness disappear. I didn't know you were picking at my scars to heal me where we were until I told you enough to push you away. I pushed you away just in time to not know enough about what I was leaving behind.
...
It's been long enough. Hasn't it?
You barely even know me. I fall fast but I'd so much rather do so than stay buried beneath these dead leaves. The shards of broken hearts create small slivers but sometimes the smallest wounds hurt the most. Can I tell you anything? Can we even just communicate? Is infatuation okay here? I'd like to escape this lonely togetherness. What are you looking for?
And everyone else: you don't know me anymore. I have opinions. I have ears in high places. My heart lays low among the brush and rubs sticks together that only create forest fires burning homes and habitats in their way. I'm a disappearing mosaic of atoms descended from Adam. Do you read poems like an almanac? Do you force-feed your seed the secondhand stories you've heard? Do you verify your sources before you pass along the chismes?
Why does this always happen to me? Here?
...
It's been long enough. Hasn't it?
You barely even know me. I fall fast but I'd so much rather do so than stay buried beneath these dead leaves. The shards of broken hearts create small slivers but sometimes the smallest wounds hurt the most. Can I tell you anything? Can we even just communicate? Is infatuation okay here? I'd like to escape this lonely togetherness. What are you looking for?
And everyone else: you don't know me anymore. I have opinions. I have ears in high places. My heart lays low among the brush and rubs sticks together that only create forest fires burning homes and habitats in their way. I'm a disappearing mosaic of atoms descended from Adam. Do you read poems like an almanac? Do you force-feed your seed the secondhand stories you've heard? Do you verify your sources before you pass along the chismes?
Why does this always happen to me? Here?
Sunday, October 23, 2016
A son of Peter
I came here because the words were bubbling up inside and now they're just runaway wheels. I fell asleep nine times before I woke up this morning. The atmosphere I live in is so high above the ground that I can't seem to find myself anymore. I listen for self-defining, not self-confining, lyrics and get lost in magical thinking. My culture says, "No that's not allowed. We will not permit you to be yourself." Your culture says, "Here's the box we made for you. Come crawl inside and fit the mold we carved out in our minds. If you don't fit there's something wrong with you. Don't question my assumptions; trust me, I know who you are."
A son of Peter cannot be an immigrant. He cannot understand my story. No, a son of Peter cannot speak for me; he hasn't lived my life. No amount of books he's read will ever convince me that he is more than just a well read man of ignorance.
A purebred pale complexioned Caucasian is anything but complex. If we're being scientific, he's not even Caucasian. His green eyes, pale skin, and clean-shaven jaw may have been in for centuries but he isn't who he claims to be. You may find him under a fig tree but don't trust the olive branch that he will offer you.
Politics say he's red. History says he's right. His pockets are never light. He finds his satisfaction in others' plight. Do. Not. Trust. Him.
So yes, to a small extent, I do know how you feel. When you open your mouth only to close mine little pieces of my heart disappear.
A son of Peter cannot be an immigrant. He cannot understand my story. No, a son of Peter cannot speak for me; he hasn't lived my life. No amount of books he's read will ever convince me that he is more than just a well read man of ignorance.
A purebred pale complexioned Caucasian is anything but complex. If we're being scientific, he's not even Caucasian. His green eyes, pale skin, and clean-shaven jaw may have been in for centuries but he isn't who he claims to be. You may find him under a fig tree but don't trust the olive branch that he will offer you.
Politics say he's red. History says he's right. His pockets are never light. He finds his satisfaction in others' plight. Do. Not. Trust. Him.
So yes, to a small extent, I do know how you feel. When you open your mouth only to close mine little pieces of my heart disappear.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Trauma is a run-on sentence
It's like gently nodding off with a full stomach and a light heart in your beloved's arms on a train bound for Paradise and suddenly being forcefully awakened by a violent shiver piercing from your insides outward, only to slowly realize the only clothes you wear are darkness in a frozen Hell crowded by your fiercest foes and most profound fears.
Trauma is a run-on sentence that's always on the move. We insert pauses, semicolons, periods, and commas. We vigorously try to erase words and fragments or add proper punctuation, but the marks remain, the paper tears, and the whiteout leaves us emptier than before. Our Stockholm syndrome runs back to hug the cactus. We introduce it to our friends and neighbors and feel their eyes on our souls as we whisper sweet nothings to the plant that somehow thrives in a barren land.
We try to fall asleep but can only fall apart. We paint over the feelings and convince ourselves they are accurate representations of our own failings and then silently lament over why no one wants to see the original coat and color. "Look what I've done," we smile proudly; and when they compliment our façade, our structural integrity trembles silently, "why can't they see me?"
When you insert your story do you take away mine? When you tell me everything's okay, do you mean to soak my scars with tears and lime?
Trauma is a run-on sentence that's always on the move. We insert pauses, semicolons, periods, and commas. We vigorously try to erase words and fragments or add proper punctuation, but the marks remain, the paper tears, and the whiteout leaves us emptier than before. Our Stockholm syndrome runs back to hug the cactus. We introduce it to our friends and neighbors and feel their eyes on our souls as we whisper sweet nothings to the plant that somehow thrives in a barren land.
We try to fall asleep but can only fall apart. We paint over the feelings and convince ourselves they are accurate representations of our own failings and then silently lament over why no one wants to see the original coat and color. "Look what I've done," we smile proudly; and when they compliment our façade, our structural integrity trembles silently, "why can't they see me?"
When you insert your story do you take away mine? When you tell me everything's okay, do you mean to soak my scars with tears and lime?
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Cleansing Fire for a Deceptive Heart
Deep in the furnace passed the places where desire deceives us there is a flame that burns freely. A flame that burns selfish ambition away and leaves nothing but freedom and obedience. It is a place where pain is temporary discipline and love is sincerely true.
I fall into deep despair and find it difficult to regain my footing. There are mines all around you and they so closely surround you that if I do not fall for you I simply explode into countless pieces. I find myself looking down and not being able to take my eyes away. My heart deceives me in the most uncomfortably pleasant way. I dream of faces attached to fingers and search for specific words that seem to only be clouding the map in front of me, if it's even a map at all.
I don't let you say a word because I have already chosen them for you. I don't want to choose them for you but my heart has its way and it's deception feels so right and still somehow I know it's wrong. You can dance in a cemetery but that doesn't change the fact that you are surrounded by death. You can play a joyful tune through your headphones in a desert, but will not cure your thirst or call for welcome company. Batteries die. Flesh fades and wrinkles. Eyes swell, droop, and become dazed in a blur.
These jigsaw puzzle pieces do not fit in the empty spaces. They will not turn the key that opens the door to logos and Paradise. These pieces don't hearken back to the times in the Garden when we walked together. Quite conversely they resurrect the serpent's whispers. The deceiver has deceived you and as you attempt to argue in protest you just prove to us that you're buried deep in his lies.
Still.
Somehow.
The.
Fire.
Is.
Sufficient.
&.
Still.
Somehow.
It.
Burns.
You.
Clean.
I fall into deep despair and find it difficult to regain my footing. There are mines all around you and they so closely surround you that if I do not fall for you I simply explode into countless pieces. I find myself looking down and not being able to take my eyes away. My heart deceives me in the most uncomfortably pleasant way. I dream of faces attached to fingers and search for specific words that seem to only be clouding the map in front of me, if it's even a map at all.
I don't let you say a word because I have already chosen them for you. I don't want to choose them for you but my heart has its way and it's deception feels so right and still somehow I know it's wrong. You can dance in a cemetery but that doesn't change the fact that you are surrounded by death. You can play a joyful tune through your headphones in a desert, but will not cure your thirst or call for welcome company. Batteries die. Flesh fades and wrinkles. Eyes swell, droop, and become dazed in a blur.
These jigsaw puzzle pieces do not fit in the empty spaces. They will not turn the key that opens the door to logos and Paradise. These pieces don't hearken back to the times in the Garden when we walked together. Quite conversely they resurrect the serpent's whispers. The deceiver has deceived you and as you attempt to argue in protest you just prove to us that you're buried deep in his lies.
Still.
Somehow.
The.
Fire.
Is.
Sufficient.
&.
Still.
Somehow.
It.
Burns.
You.
Clean.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Rushing into Nothing
Another quick episode. Yes, it may not be mania but my mind sure runs fast on nights like these. All I can think about is everything that's been on my mind for the last few days. Everything runs fast while my mouth yawns wide.
I begin to sense the tears of a gradually approaching sleep that may somehow arrive suddenly.
I forget that sometimes the child sitting in the chair in front of me is me. I sometimes forget that eliminating all traces of judgment is not just being generally vague. It's also not quite possible in this fleshly mind. I cannot be completely free from bias. I am sitting across from me. I am the sad, the downtrodden and depressed. I am the confused, alone, and isolated. I am the faces that struggle to make eye contact because they're not ready to face their fears. I am the hidden frown beneath the nervous laugh. Why can't I see myself?
Why is my goal to be free from bias? Life and work, and social work in particular, are more than ethics. People are not numbers and statistics. In the same way that I do not wish to be morphed into a number, neither do those that sit on the other side. I am more than just a voice box and they are more than just sponges. I must give them more credit than I have. They are former, future, and present me. Perhaps I have been shame, maybe I've been a blank wall, and I don't know what I've been most of all.
What am I other than a slightly larger lump above my sheets? I only do what others ask. When my soul or stomach reach for something my superego smacks my arm away. I'm something short of nothing and jogging slowly in place. Not even jogging, I'm sleepwalking to nowhere. I'm not sure I could even make it there. Where will any of this even go?
Dear Google and the world beyond me, the future without me and the people that read me,
I do not know the significance here. I'm not sure why some of this rambling continues. I fall asleep with my eyes open. Meanwhile my waking hours are spent with my eyes closed to the world around me. I don't show myself the time of day. I disappear into the background of my life as others look through me like wax paper. I'm not quite transparent but they can see some form beyond me.
Do you trust me? Will you let me hold you, know you? Will you take me to the place where we can fall asleep together and wake up in each other's dreams? How do we get there? Can we even go back?
I begin to sense the tears of a gradually approaching sleep that may somehow arrive suddenly.
I forget that sometimes the child sitting in the chair in front of me is me. I sometimes forget that eliminating all traces of judgment is not just being generally vague. It's also not quite possible in this fleshly mind. I cannot be completely free from bias. I am sitting across from me. I am the sad, the downtrodden and depressed. I am the confused, alone, and isolated. I am the faces that struggle to make eye contact because they're not ready to face their fears. I am the hidden frown beneath the nervous laugh. Why can't I see myself?
Why is my goal to be free from bias? Life and work, and social work in particular, are more than ethics. People are not numbers and statistics. In the same way that I do not wish to be morphed into a number, neither do those that sit on the other side. I am more than just a voice box and they are more than just sponges. I must give them more credit than I have. They are former, future, and present me. Perhaps I have been shame, maybe I've been a blank wall, and I don't know what I've been most of all.
What am I other than a slightly larger lump above my sheets? I only do what others ask. When my soul or stomach reach for something my superego smacks my arm away. I'm something short of nothing and jogging slowly in place. Not even jogging, I'm sleepwalking to nowhere. I'm not sure I could even make it there. Where will any of this even go?
Dear Google and the world beyond me, the future without me and the people that read me,
I do not know the significance here. I'm not sure why some of this rambling continues. I fall asleep with my eyes open. Meanwhile my waking hours are spent with my eyes closed to the world around me. I don't show myself the time of day. I disappear into the background of my life as others look through me like wax paper. I'm not quite transparent but they can see some form beyond me.
Do you trust me? Will you let me hold you, know you? Will you take me to the place where we can fall asleep together and wake up in each other's dreams? How do we get there? Can we even go back?
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Maybe some day is sometimes somehow today
I'm a new thing. A soul in repair or under construction. I'm in between nap time and nighttime. I'm learning to be present today rather than dreading tomorrow or regretting yesterday. I'm not perfect, (far from it) but I'm trying. I'm not trying to be perfect, just trying to be more in the moment than I often am.
Because waiting five years for everything to remain the same including my heart and her name is erasing the precious present moment. Why does my heart look longingly in her direction? The fresh perspectives, the different stories. There is just something there and I can't quite taste what it is. I may have mentioned this before, but I do not think it is the fondness born in absence because I recall the memories of who we are and how we are in the moments together.
Is it too much to ask to just be able to hold your hand for a moment? To be able to sit quietly with you under the stars? The thoughts you expel from your head move me. You hardly speak and my heart falls into your lap. Barely a word leaves your mouth and it's all somehow enough to keep me intrigued. Even the so-called "depressive" thoughts open me up to something further. Can we just try something? Can we try it some time?
Five years is too long to wait. That's almost as long as it's been since we first met and barely longer than the last time we saw each other in person. We can take turns cradling each other in open arms. Your innovative thoughts tuck me in at night in the best way imaginable. Your words ignite filaments in the lightbulbs above my head. They restore ink to my once dried pen.
I know you're not the reason for all of this world. I know there is life outside of you. I know you're not a goddess. You're not to be worshipped, but would you give me a chance to be present with you. Let me follow you around as you step through challenges and successes. Can we share life together at some point? Is it possible to see you for longer than a couple of days? Is it possible for the extent of our relationship to be more than passing tourists on vacation?
I want to experience your presence and know who you really are. I want to know you truly. Will you ever give me the chance?
Because waiting five years for everything to remain the same including my heart and her name is erasing the precious present moment. Why does my heart look longingly in her direction? The fresh perspectives, the different stories. There is just something there and I can't quite taste what it is. I may have mentioned this before, but I do not think it is the fondness born in absence because I recall the memories of who we are and how we are in the moments together.
Is it too much to ask to just be able to hold your hand for a moment? To be able to sit quietly with you under the stars? The thoughts you expel from your head move me. You hardly speak and my heart falls into your lap. Barely a word leaves your mouth and it's all somehow enough to keep me intrigued. Even the so-called "depressive" thoughts open me up to something further. Can we just try something? Can we try it some time?
Five years is too long to wait. That's almost as long as it's been since we first met and barely longer than the last time we saw each other in person. We can take turns cradling each other in open arms. Your innovative thoughts tuck me in at night in the best way imaginable. Your words ignite filaments in the lightbulbs above my head. They restore ink to my once dried pen.
I know you're not the reason for all of this world. I know there is life outside of you. I know you're not a goddess. You're not to be worshipped, but would you give me a chance to be present with you. Let me follow you around as you step through challenges and successes. Can we share life together at some point? Is it possible to see you for longer than a couple of days? Is it possible for the extent of our relationship to be more than passing tourists on vacation?
I want to experience your presence and know who you really are. I want to know you truly. Will you ever give me the chance?
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