RAW WORKS FOR THE DARING SOUL
Light peeking through the curtains,
I smile with a sigh of relief.
Today, I can see you,
I even went to the roof to admire your rise.
Making up for all the days your presence fails to penetrate my pit,
Not today, I can see you sun,
I mean really see you.
Please, please stay.
I thought I was waiting,
I thought I was late,
Merely because my thoughts were wrapped in time, in a state.
Only to unveil that everything I am is punctual,
Is exactly where I’m supposed to be.
And this time, time, time,
That we continue to weaponize against ourselves,
Is the exactly what has halted us from the present,
From the growth,
From the real magic that exists inside and outside our realms.
Contemptuously conditioned to stuff extremely complicated subjects
into tiny boxes.
Hoarding what’s ours and hissing at anyone who questions,
No, threatens!
I don’t believe that some are tougher than others.
Sensitivity is the nature of our species,
Some of us are just better liars,
Cloaking ourselves in more acceptable emotions like
indifference, anger, annoyance.
Because most of us have souls that fled somewhere in the early chaos,
Leaving our hearts exposed to whatever change of wind life decides to blow.
“Are you stressed?” She folded her arms in concern.
I shook my head, “I don’t think so.”
We both looked down at my nails bitten and bloody and then back at each other,
Silence.
The creases of my mouth began to lift and
I smiled for the first time in days.
It’s true that the body keeps count,
And in this moment I was reminded.
I was taught that lesson of how deep it efforts to keep us safe from what we can’t bare.
And I suppose in this moment,
Alone in the middle of Thailand,
While being massaged by a sweet stranger,
It was time to face the void.
Silent and stiff, I watched the buried scenes of the seizure of me.
And just as the heart pumps blood out and through every vein,
I saw the poison of this event inject itself into my most innocent and hopeful powers.
This is dissociation.
What is time to healing?
It simply doesn’t conform to our impossible standards.
Because trauma has the ability to bend time, jumping forwards and backwards.
I have to remind myself that there’s no limit to healing.
There’s no magical pill or retreat or shaman that can McFix the complexities of our pain.
And the delays that seem long and overplayed are merely it’s premeditated punctuality.
I have to remind myself that this feeling,
this dethawing,
although at times uncomfortable,
is a hell of a lot better than the paralysis.
She likes the view from on top.
Classy woman.
Exhausted from pretending, she strips all that is moral as the front door closes.
And while night grows longer she scowls towards the bottom of the hill.
Babbling to no one while smearing her red lipstick all over her wine glass.
She doesn’t notice and wouldn’t care if she did,
This is her bloody house!
Nails long and made for pointing,
Even the furniture inching its way towards the door.
Messy girl.
Finally, the bottle tucks her sloppy ass in with a kiss on the cheek
and lovingly whispers,
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Stay still,
Quiet down,
Stop crying,
Quit fidgeting,
Be happy,
Grow up.
A society obsessed with creatives, actors, musicians, writers,
Yet we discourage ourselves, our family, our friends to participate.
We even mock those creating for not having a “real” job, for not taking life seriously.
Unless the art is making lots of money then we say, “Great job, create away!”
Children, allowed only to a certain age, coloring, dancing, dressing up, all their favorites.
Then we take all that creative love they have worked so hard to nurture,
and we yank it right out from their hands and tell them “No more!”
Failure is not an option little one,
Now sit your ass down and get to work.
You will make a fantastic consumer one day,
You will make a fantastic soldier one day,
The American Dream.
Where we spend our entire lives working and making money for others with an inch of hope that we might get to visit Florida one day.
Florida.
And we wonder why we have an epidemic of depressed adults.
Thoughts lag coming to an abrupt halt, heavy and hollow,
Eyes paralyzed staring at something,
Seeing nothing.
Air releases entirely from the lungs,
Taking a light head to remind me to breathe.
Body numbing, Stomach falling,
and cheeks flushed to the ghost that has just reappeared.
Snap out of it,
Stay positive.
An idea, a mistaken belief,
That this springs from nurturing negative thoughts,
That we allow ourselves to feel so much that we’re swallowed whole by the dark.
What they don’t know is that this dark,
is not dark at all,
It’s being paralyzed in the in-between,
Kidnapped in broad daylight.
What they don’t know is that it dances in ruthlessly at times when it’s least invited,
A needle slowly deflating even the most optimistic, colorful of the bunch.
The truth is,
depression,
is feeling absolutely nothing.
Can you think of anything more terrifying than feeling nothing?
It’s a suffocation that tricks you into believing you will be stuck feeling nothing forever,
That is until it finally releases its grip.
Like most things,
it comes in waves,
subtle or strong,
and in order to survive,
we have to remember to hold on tight while the worst of it passes.
I ran to the hills to catch a breath, a few breaths,
some new fucking lungs.
I needed time,
Everyone needs time sometimes,
Despite what we’re raised to believe.
I needed my memory and in these hills
the last they were seen.
The smell alone was enough,
The cedar, the soil.
And just as I suspected, they arrived.
Many say you can’t live in the past and I agree
it can be a horrid place.
But you also can’t heal what hasn’t been exposed.
And there are few things I find more courageous than facing your greatest opponent.
CONVERSATIONS WITH ASSHOLES 