bad stuff, good company

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I went to a party.
There was a charcoal grill, everything smelt lovely.
Beer and cigarettes and laughter.
About 5 emo-punk kids showed up in leather jackets. Black hair, skinny jeans, dreads, studded bracelets.
They made themselves be known and perched upon the porch.
The wind blew and the smoke charged in their direction.
All of them retreated from the cloud.
I remained in my place and couldn’t help but think, “that’s not very punk rock of you”.

i’ll wear a cloak made of mirrors so they will only see themselves

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“Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re safe”
I feel so trapped in my body (and my mind, but that’s for another page).
In my long and arduous journey to make peace with my physical form, I’ve hit a wall. I preach so often about loving–worshipping yourself to everyone I see. It took me a little too long to truly find comfort within my skin. It used to be about me.. I didn’t look right, I wanted something different in the mirror–it was never for or about anyone but me.
It’s curious to see how my perspective has changed. I had become so used to hiding myself, disguising myself, I didn’t want to see any part of me. But now..
Now it aches in a completely different way.
I fear that I’ve given up a part of myself–a little less control, less safety. I still take far too long to get dressed. When I change my clothes at least three different times before I leave the house, I don’t think about anyone but myself.
I want to be comfortable.
I want to feel true.
Most days I can achieve that now, better than I ever had before.
The problem is no longer in my head or in the mirror.
The problem is other people.
I know enough to understand that this will never change–but my tolerance is wearing thin.
I don’t often show a lot of skin.
I enjoy pockets and longer pants.
I am thin.
My chest is lacking femininity.
I understand that what I look like, how I present myself, and how I carry myself are usually conflicting. But I do not get dressed–I do not exist for anyone but myself.
I dont want people to look at me.
I dont want to hear the same “lighthearted” or “flirtatious” comments about my size or my chest.
I am more than this small body and I am not for anyone.
I don’t want it.
I don’t feel safe.
I don’t feel comfortable.
I want to return to hiding.
I fought for so long to love myself..and almost everyday I go outside I am reminded that it doesn’t mean anything.
I am angry with people I know, I am angry with strangers. All I can do to fix it is disappoint and shame myself for simply trying to exist.
“You gotta let go, let go, child”

you’re very charming, but you make me nervous

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I’ve been having serious problems with my internal “fight or flight” lately. I want to fight so many people, so many things, so many wrongs. I don’t feel like I’m allowed. My greater instinct has always been flight–I have wings for a reason. I want so desperately to leave it all behind. I don’t want to die. I just want an out. Not an easy out–it’s never easy–I need to escape.
I know my Inner Child is angry.
Perhaps more angry with me than the situation or the environment. I think I feel the same way that I have for a long time–angry. Hurt.
A deep internal fire, not muchness, but a rage fueled by pain and fear.
She wants me to save myself.
I want to try for her, for me..
I’m lying when I say I don’t know how.
I am not very honest of late. With others or within myself. “It’s a self-preservation thing”. But in the end it’s more about hiding. I don’t want anyone to know what’s truly going on. My face is easy to read, my language is a carefully calculated scheme.
Keep them happy.
Charm them, entertain them–that way they won’t ask questions and you never have to bare yourself. Protect them from what is inside of you while you tear yourself apart–and blame them for it.
I am a hypocrite.
I resent them for upsetting me after I gave them the “how to” book. It’s easier to blame them for never reading between the lines.
I play this game. This test?
I know that it’s me.
I am the destroyer of my own world, yet I never change my tune.
Resentment. Resentment pointed inward. “You are the only light there is for yourself, my friend”.
I’m so good at pretending.
It’s getting harder to fool myself.
I want to be real.
I want to be myself without lies or burdens.
I want to take the weight off my shoulders and throw the unwritten expectations of others out the window.
I want to draw proper lines. Set true boundaries.
I want to uphold them. To respect myself again.
I want to keep myself as safe as I’ve tried to keep all of them.
It is so much scarier to face myself, my life, than it is to simply hide away.
No one can see you when you hide–if it’s dark enough, you can’t even see yourself.

“we gotta leave this world behind”

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Yesterday was my birthday.

I guess I set the bar too high. I wanted to be with the people I love. It hurt to not be around water. Billiards was okay. Drinks were okay. Games were okay.

I wanted them to go and they did.

All I did was cry.

Today I want to cry. I think there’s something wrong with me. No matter what I’m doing I seem to crave more–something else? I don’t want to be dysfunctional. I don’t want to disappoint anyone. I’m letting myself down by existing like this.
I thought it could be special. I thought that giving meaning to something insignificant would fill this hole within me. I think I was made wrong. Or maybe somewhere along the way I became wrong. Ill? Unable? I don’t know the answer. I feel like I’m wasting my life. And for this I blame myself. Not my environment, not the situation, not the people in my world.

I am the problem. If I am the problem, I must be the solution. I spend so much time looking for the solution I know does not exist. But I exist. I am here. It just doesn’t seem like it.

There has to be more than this.

I was not made to suffer. I don’t accept that. I may not have been chosen for great things, but I refuse to believe that this is all there is. Waiting. Hoping. Dreaming. There has to be something else. It doesn’t have to be better, but it needs to be different. I deserve peace. I long for satisfaction. I crave fulfillment.
I know these things, these feelings, I know they are out there somewhere. I know that this earth is difficult, I know they don’t come for free, no one will give me these things–they have to be found. Earned? I will not find what I so desperately seek in a person or a place. I have to make my own comfort. Look within and unlock relief. I simply don’t know how.

I’ve grown weary.

I’ve become collateral damage in this war against myself. I know what I want. I have to keep faith that I will reach that state of being, but I am standing in my own way..

I want to walk without myself. I want to swim and climb and fly far away from myself–somewhere I can’t hear my own thoughts. I want to separate the shame, the fear, the dread and the doubt. I want to put all of my negativity in a box and bury it so far away that I forget where I left it.

I want to feel joy without measuring it. I want to go to sleep without worry. I want to wake up without anger. I want to exist beside my pain–not within it.
It sounds so simple on paper.

It seems so easy.

I’ve told myself these things for so long now that I ought to feel better, I should have learned by now.
I don’t know how to turn it off.

softspine

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A bleeding heart is not weaker than a cold one.
Fight of plight.
The world is not soft. You must be strong–your survival depends on it. Strength is not quantifiable. It is not limited to your body or your willpower. There are many ways one can be “strong”, love is not a handicap. Love is an odd construct. Some people believe that we cannot live without love, without being loved. Some people believe that an abundance of love is a sign of weakness. “Too much” love will blind you–disable you. “Not enough” love will hurt you–poison you. There are no lines here, there is no perfect balance, no “just right” level of love to keep you on solid ground. I believe that every human makes the choice (conscious or otherwise) to give and take the amount of love they desire–the amount that they are comfortable with. It does not feel like a choice.
Love will show itself in strange and insignificant ways, it is as difficult to quantify as strength. To sacrifice. To consume. These are extremes, acts of love. What is one willing to risk? To take? People do great things–terrible and beautiful things–in the name of love. No one has the power to dictate your love. The amount you choose to give, to let in. Until you choose to share that love, express that love, open up to being loved, any adjective that love–Your love belongs to you and you alone. The love you come by can be stolen. The love you put into the world can be abused, you are allowed to not love.
Love is incredible.
Love is painful.
Love is so many things that cannot be expressed with mere words.
But love is not a weakness.
Love is a strength.
Love is a superpower.
No amount of love is right or wrong. Never let them tell you that.
You cannot love too much. They will tell you that you cannot live that way. They say you will “run out” of love if you “waste” it.
You must always save love for yourself.
But there is not a limit to love.
No amount of love in this existence will doom you, damn you.
The world needs more love. More kindness, more strength.
Do not believe them.
There is always love to be given.
There is always love to comfort.
Love does not expire.
Love is not a limited thing.

Please.
Love endlessly.
Love ferociously.
Love excessively.
Love mercilessly.
Love whether it is “deserved” or not.
Love whether it is “earned” or not.
Love without fear.
Love without reward.
Love without expectation.
Love with determination.
Please.

Your love does not make you small.
Your love does not make you weak.

You are not a bleeding heart.

dots as lines

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It is 8pm on a Sunday. It is so quiet. All the neighbors lights are off and no one seems to be stirring. I cannot see into their Mungo boxes. A child cries, a dog barks, no cars are driving past. I want so desperately to make noise. To take up space. To exist, to be. I do not wish to be in this place, but I exist here. Does anyone else? Life is happening to everyone. All around, people live in these so-called “homes”, they eat and sleep–a child cries again. Maybe a bird. There are hardly any stars tonight. It’s cloudy, it is cold. The cold air feels nice but even your breathing seems too loud for this peaceful night. Retreat. Retreat towards an illusion of comfort. Pray that you find comfort. Retreat to sleep. Wishful for sweet dreams, forethoughtful of what tomorrow holds, goodnight.
Goonight.

07.27.18

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You are not timeless.
You are relevant.
Everything that everyone does is pertinent.
I know.
I know this.
Empiricism.
The passage of time.
Days and months and years.
I understand.
Cells and protons and electrons and choices.
I understand how it works.
I am real, I see things and I comprehend them.
Within the most basic levels of energy, things exist. Infallibly.
We’re all made from stardust and we function…
Humans are complex organisms. Humans are individual.
Humans are flawed.
Mentally and biologically no two humans function the exact same way.
Some may even be considered “broken” on some level.
Broken is a relative term.
Everything is relative.
Humans can be wired “incorrectly”, function “incorrectly”.
Everything is chaos.
I’ve been told that I think about it wrong.
Does “wrong” exist?
Humans have laws, behavioral patterns, a concept of normalcy.
I am a human, I drink water and my heart pumps blood.
I am relevant, I am relative.
I do not believe I am timeless.
I do not believe I am irrelevant.
I know that my existence affects the world, as the world affects me.
I know that both my existence and the world are constant.
I do not wish to abandon the world.
But I can’t convince myself it isn’t broken.
Why do we do the things we do in the way we do them?
Why do humans only work these few, constant ways?
I don’t believe I am special.
I know I’m not different from any other human in the way I function.
So many of the humans function the same way.
I think so often about being different.
I don’t want to break things or hurt anyone.
I want to function differently.
I want to exist differently.
I do not understand why I think the way that I do.
I don’t understand how other people think the way they do.
Everyone is the same, everyone is unique.
Is the world wrong?
Is every human wrong?
Am I wrong?
There’s something in the wiring, always.
I think I can see it.
I do not understand.
I do not know.

“it’s all happening”

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I can make art. I will create lovely things. I am a beautiful thing. I will not give up and I will make art.

My art will make me proud and happy.

I will create art that makes someone feel the way “ANGEL” (https://www.paoloraeli.com) makes me feel. I will inspire myself. I will inspire people.

I will look at what I have made and I will lose my breath.

I will feel it in my veins and ink it into my skin.

I can make art.

I will.

Just you wait… I can see it…

take me to buffalo land

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Go home.
Go home and make peace with your father.
Go home and talk to your mother the way she longed to speak with her own.
Go home and tell your sister that she was right and you are sorry.
Go home and tell your brothers that you love them and you couldn’t do it without them.
Go home and love those cats before you cannot.
Go home and cherish your lover without fear of loss.
Go home and change yourself.
Go home and heal.
Go home and create a safe place.
Go home and feel at home.
Go home.

And as soon as you can, get the hell out of there.