I barely know who I am, and most days I'm hardly conscious of what I'm doing or where I'm going. I have memories of where I've been, but after time those fade and peel away leaving faint scars. I know where I want to go, who I want to become; my daily struggles are about trying to get there and not lose myself in the process.
for a moment today, I was myself again.
I saw the green of the grass and cracks in a wall.
mundane things that I pass every day
of my existence in this misty country.
for one fleeting moment
I felt strong.
a gull passed overhead
and I remembered how things are.
some things will never be different.
a hand up to steamed glass
I examine the remains of a print
of a fossil of a shell of who I once was
how everything has turned from eternal winter
— frozen over like arctic steel —
only to be shattered into a thousand fragments
to melt into something that cannot even convey
everything that I feel.
I used to be so adept at conveying myself. I was known for standing up and shouting against what I felt was wrong, hypocritical, or unjust. I allowed myself to dislike without grudging or without hating, while others chided me for being childish in my stubbornness… only to turn around to these “friends” and whisper like a game of high school telephone. At least I was able to remain steadfast.
But I knew when to bend with the willows; I was adept at adapting and could drag a morsel of good out of any shithouse stew.
And then another moment. A single string or series of events would irrevocably change every thing about myself I have ever grown to know. Whether I liked or disliked it, didn’t matter. I don’t know who I am anymore.
At least I’m not a liar, at least I’m not a cheat — but I wish to God I did not give a damn what all of those people think.
I tell myself, maybe they really believe that I’m lying. Maybe they honestly think I believe that I’m lying — that would explain, I suppose, how I have been treated. But why, why or how, how! How could anyone think I would do something like that? How poorly must people view me! How they must never have known me at all! They surely cannot respect me enough to take one second to think that for one second, I actually feel that I have been telling the truth.
Oh, what an unwelcome revelation that would be! But I do not think it will ever come. I do not think anyone will ever even try to understand. Because when anyone thinks they know anything about something, when an individual thinks that they are really in-the-know about something, they are highly unlikely to ever rethink their position.
I do not understand why people think this of me. I know I shouldn’t care, but it bothers me to my core, how people I have been so close to for years and years could suddenly feel or think this way about me.
I know the initial acts were wrong and should have stopped. I cannot fully blame it on the alcohol, but I can certainly blame the whole of that on poor judgement. But here is something I do not understand: am I not allowed to change my mind? Do I not have the right to say stop, enough, this is wrong, I’m finished?
Yes, eventually it was asked if I had had enough. I don’t know if I was able to say anything. It had already happened. It was too late. I was already dead.
mutually-assured survival
reality is a painted yellow room
yellow with age and use and of
dozens of different shades of cream
used over dozens of different years.
of looking into the mirror and realising
that I remember every time in my life
that I have ever really cried.
huge, racking sobs of different levels of adolescent and adult despair.
I was born an old soul and will die a young body.
Because reality is the realisation that I have lost everything.
My self respect. My dignity. Any semblance of trusting myself
on my own actions.
Losing the ability to hold normal conversations with others, or even
to really form any kind of real emotional attachment at all.
Telling myself otherwise is foolish and painful. I am no stranger to pain.
I am a stranger to myself and all those around me.
Every day I relive every moment of every decision I have ever made.
Because this is the present and I must sleep in the bed I have made.
But what do you do when you become an insomniac?
Incapable of dealing with any turning of the word, stuck in an
ethereal manifestation of some perceived Earthly focal point?
Reality is the understanding that life is what you hold inside of you
that Life is an element you share with others
and something that withers away when no one is left to show it to.
Realising an entire existence of hopes dreams wishes and good intentions
all comes down to the people who judge it
My life, my reality has come down to the people who have judged me
who have judged my reality
me
as being false.
Where does that leave me?
once beautiful
if you allow yourself
to waiver for just one
moment
a single instance of lethargy
a second of inattention
pigments once wonderfully
segregated
as feelings of the soul —
love, lust, fear, hate
meld into a lifetime of any
thing but contentedness.
re-living, at every glance of
the past and every
detail and moment of
silent acceptance
that got you there.
until you are left with a
muddy representation
of what your hopes once
were.
glass
fractured panes
synonymous with pains
of losing everything.
through doubt, dignity.
through dignity, trust.
through trust, love.
the world turns unnoticing
a drowning ant in a puddle
the weak die young
slowly
as elephants
they never forget.
The ocean
so inviting
This city moves to hold me
in its arms
I feel safe
shrouded by brick and mortar
cold wind biting appendages
remembering broken vessels
bruises becoming winter roses
killed by frost
fueled by doubt
they disappear.
put away your bleeding heart
there can’t be concessions for everyone
we live in a material, martial world
and I am a realist.
there is no room for tears in a world
where the oceans are swelling and hopes are sinking
closer to some titanic realisation
that humans crave survival and satisfaction
conflicting one with the other, with one another.
where a loaded rifle is more accessible to a child
than a glass of clean water or milk.
so while we leave out our milk and cookies
for the great and fabled global imaginary
our stockings are being robbed.
There have been a lot of deaths in my life.
There has been a lot of death in my life.
People I don’t know — disasters, political and natural ones (though I suppose some could argue political disasters ARE natural), people I do know, people who have been integral parts of parts of my life.
People who have comprised the important, shining details of my life.
Perhaps it is these experiences that makes me so accustomed to the idea of death. Of the end of existence. I know it is these experiences, of the awareness of the things that could easily (if not inevitably) happen to myself, that truly set me apart from people my own age. It is an aging experience, akin in nature if not in scope of soldiers who watch others die in combat. The sheer experience of death in one’s life is sobering, it grounds us and keeps us feeling the flow of blood in our veins, the motions of bones and joints and ligaments under our skin.
It is feeling the workings of our body and being able to step outside of our physical selves, if only briefly, to see how we interact with the minutiae of the world around us — it is these things that let us know we are breathing, but it is these same things that remind us that our breaths our numbered.
The idea that things can, in fact, happen to me, is why I have always been different from my peers. Why I tend not to take unnecessary risks, whether it be buying a beer at a bar when I know I won’t get carded, or taking another hit off a bowl, or trying a line on a desk. I know things can happen. I have seen them, I have lived them, I have known them — even if many of these things are through other people.
My life was marked by death before I was even born. I would venture to say that the death of my maternal, biological grandfather was the catalyst that sparked an unfathomable sequence of events that would forever mark my family in ways that will probably never be known to me — at least not their scope.
The knowledge that everything ends, the experiences that friendships tend to be superficial and nothing more than close-quartered convenience, allows me to take great comfort in being by myself. The knowledge that I can be alone in a space by myself, whether it be a tiny dorm room, an academic building hallway, a coffee shop, or even a large park, keeps me grounded. Observation of myself and everything around me lets me know I am, to some extent, still alive.
Certainly I am still capable of forging real bonds with people. But more often than not, distance and lack of communication slowly hacks away at the bonds, like some slow-moving pendulum of a guillotine blade. What is done is done, and cannot be undone. You can try to forge new threads, cords, or what have you, but you cannot re-create things of the past. This, perhaps, has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn. One that I do not like, and one that I will, perhaps, forever struggle with.
when you’re sitting in your living room and it’s cold, but all of a sudden you bare feet are really warm. and you realise it’s because the sun finally moved across the room and onto your legs.
For my future reference and your bemusement.
For the record, these people are also likely Patron Saints of other things, but I will only include that which pertains to myself.
St. Joseph of Cupertino
Patron Saint of those traveling by air; students; students taking exams.
St. Francis of Assisi
Patron Saint of Colorado
St. Gabriel, the Archangel
Patron Saint of communications workers, diplomats
St. Christopher
Patron Saint of travelers.
Also said to not have actually existed.
