RAW WORKS FOR THE DARING SOUL
Stay still, don’t spill,
How many hours of different ceilings I’ve stared I couldn’t say,
Body straight, you travel,
burning, reminding.
Don’t be upset,
Don’t get anxious,
Because like an ear to train tracks,
It listens, It scouts, they vibrate.
Like a conductor in symphony,
It points, it waves, they play.
My bittersweet reminders,
How many must I have?
Through pain and challenged vanity,
I SLOW,
I LET GO,
I STAY HERE,
Because you love it too much when I disappear.
They came to visit last night,
Not the first and never the last.
Uninvited,
Frantic with stillness.
Living in between worlds,
And demanding I do the same.
“Wake up.” They whisper.
“I’m fucking tired, leave me alone.” I command.
And as always, they retreat back into the walls waiting for their next opportunity to share a story that I couldn’t care less about,
At least not at that hour.
I see you,
Your probity beaming bright on my lack thereof.
Slapping the lies I’ve ingested and built as my own.
I’ve temporarily pleased off the pain of others,
Only to be left starving and alone.
Don’t be distracted by those who mistake your presence for impairment,
Because we need you and I see you.
And although at my most weak moments I continue to mistreat and misjudge the traces of your decency,
I needn’t feed the same poison to others simply because it was fed to me.
We sat across each other admiring our mirrored features,
I always knew you were in there.
She winked.
Perhaps why we’d never bore,
Too many thoughts and conversations to be had,
But to see you here on the outside of my thoughts while simultaneously still on the inside,
Something different.
I waved my arms overhead,
And you crossed yours,
“I’m not a fucking puppet.”
I blushed and continued to study her charm.
She stood up and did a beautiful spin just for me.
She’s more graceful than me, I thought.
We both started to laugh, echoing one another.
It vibrated the room waking up my partner from his sleep.
His eyes tired and struck,
“Who the fuck are you talking to?”
And when he flipped on the light she was gone.
“Traitor,” I whispered.
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.
CONVERSATIONS WITH ASSHOLES 