The Impossibilty of the Existence of Anything.

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the porch

i want you to close your eyes.
imagine yourself in a field
and the only part of your body
that asks for warmth
is the tip of your nose,
and the very tips of your fingers.
so you take your right hand
and place your pointer on the very tip of your nose
and smile.

i want you to close your eyes
and imagine yourself in a field
so quiet
you can hear the grass around you
chanting
“grow, grow, grow”
the only part of your body
that asks for warmth
is the widest part of your lips,
yearning for the heat
of another warm body.

ignore this urge
and listen to the grass.
your ears are learning more in the silence.
you hear the small creatures under the earth
working the ground into a home.
smile.

now pick up the peace pipe at your side
and with all the love in your heart,
give thanks.
you tell the wood you are glad,
you thank the air and the grass.
and the pipe is lit.
this is because you are fire.

you breathe in.
your mind says nothing,
your body whispers “yes”
and you hear water beneath the ground
working into each blade that surrounds you.
you know this
because you are water.

exhale.
you can sense the air,
barely moving around you
as it rushes through the far off trees
and you know this
but not because you are air.

you are earth.
you are wood and land
and water and flame
and treacherous smoke.
you are ash.
dirt.
you are mud,
a crawling thing living on this planet
working the ground into a home.

you pull from the pipe
and with all the love in your heart,
do not ask forgiveness.
you give thanks,
because this life
is not a mistake.

Tags: /writing

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ihaveaproblem

I’m addicted to people.

I need more and more in my life. It’s gotten worse over the years, and I don’t know how to stop it. I can’t help but need to meet people and acquire friendships.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that a good portion of individuals have a hard time making friends and I’m really good at getting a lot of folks out of their shell.

But I’m terrified of my lack of will power with others. They don’t use me as a doormat as they once did, which is great, but I still feel compelled to play some social game of understanding and so forth.

It’s like saving face or keeping up a good rep. I was never a popular kid in high school.Scratch that, I was not a popular kid in high school until the end. But until then, I went home most days, spent a lot of afternoons and evenings alone or with just family. But even around my relatives, I was isolated for a good portion of the day. My best friend in middle school lived in the building next to me, so I’d go over her house and usually never finish my homework.

I feel as though being around people is a profession. I don’t see it as work, but I do get the same satisfaction from introducing two people as I do after I write a good poem, finish a chore or have a good day at work. Well, two people that really mesh, that is. When they don’t mesh, it feels like a bad performance or walking in on your parents having a date night without thinking you’d be home this early.

I tell people a lot of things they don’t want to hear. I leave myself vulnerable often. I believe honesty is the best policy, and sometimes brutal is better.

Do not let them take all of you. People are like maggots, they will get one part and want more until you have nothing left for yourself. (Written in a note to me from my best beloved, Tej, while in my sophomore year of high school.)

I guess this is my fear of nudity. And also part of why I’ve been so desperate to project myself onto my friends and simultaneously thank them so much. 

Anyway—-nudity. It’s not about physical exposure, so much. That’s fine. But physical exposure plus someone knowing me inside and out, or at least thinking that they do, gives me the sense that I have nothing left to myself and nothing left to give to that person. It is as though after they have seen my body and all my secrets and hidden treasures and the kiss in the corner of my mouth, that I will be dried up and left—-not even good enough to be a raisin, even dried grapes get a second chance in breakfast cereal.

It is like how they used to think of pictures as being a way to capture one’s soul. At that point, I am worried I will no longer be my own person.

Sometimes I am in awe of how my friends put up with me. I’m crass, weird and occasionally just mean and out of line. On one level, I totally accept and KNOW that I am a great person to be around, someone that is ready to love others and have fun times with and inspiring and all that. I am a comfort to a lot of people and it makes me feel good to be that safe person. I’m also the person that will stop at nothing to make sure you are leading your life into a happy direction. (I guess at some point, that sentence might have read with “the direction you deserve”, doling out what I felt were just words to those I felt dished it to themselves. I don’t know if I know “better” now, I just think differently about it. I can’t force someone to think poorly of their actions if they’re not doing something wrong or don’t need to do. -hurrah for general statments-)

However, even though I am aware of all these wonderful things that I am and that I give to others, there is still a lurking part of me that has been Tyler Durdening myself in my bosses’ office and kicking myself in the stomach, hurling blood across the carpet. I don’t know if that self-destruction will ever stop boiling inside of me, playing with fire without fully understanding that I am made of flash paper.

So I look to those around me to avoid my inner turmoil. I find every good quality within others and sip it slowly through my teeth, holding our sugar cube friendship so delicately. If I drink too fast, overindulge, I’m so worried that they’ll disintegrate into a memory of sweetness. While loss is part of the human condition, I don’t want to fucking rush it.

“It is not contention we should try to avoid, but discourses that attempt to suppress contention.”

I know I need time to myself. But the more time I spend with others, the more trapped I feel while I’m alone. It wasn’t always like that. I go through phases of liking and disliking my own company. I am wrecked if it is just me and my anxiety sitting on the couch watching Jerry Springer. But long walks through the park when there is only cosmic or mundane thought without struggle or fear, those are my favorite personal dates. I buy myself coffee, pick flowers and sing love song praises to my own health.

My friends treat me like I would treat myself on a good day. I am thankful for that, hopeful that they’ll tell me if I approach the point when I am taking advantage of them, even more hopeful that they will not leave me if I do cross that line.

The fear of abandonment is from the fear of inadequacy. I am shocked that I never put the two together before, but I suppose it takes a lot more work to get that out than it takes getting in. It’s easy to program a young mind into believing every word you say is true. And somewhere along the line, I was told to believe as much as possible—-which is how, at the age of five, my father convinced me that butterflies had teeth and to this very day I cannot help but flinch in the presence of those pretty creatures.

Which is a fear of change. Fear of change is the fear of abandonment is the fear of inadequacy. Not as simply, but it boils down the same way. I’m terrified that if something about me or the life around me changes, I’ll be left behind because I won’t be good enough. If I know I’m good enough, I know that the change is fine because I’m going to be backed up without a question. Logical enough, right?

Back to people, it is as though I cannot get enough company to fill my life. I know so many folks already, I sometimes have a hard time keeping track of what person has this allergy or has had this trauma or has that tattoo or dated that girl or was with me that night….it wasn’t like that before. I can’t tell if my memory is starting to go or if I’m just starting to meet enough people I get close with that I’m beginning to lose track of intimate knowledge. I wonder if this makes me a bad friend and that’s a terrifying thought. One of a tenured teacher knowing that they are going senile.

I am trying to keep myself away from the kicking and the screaming basement of my mind where I destroy everything that I ever thought could be beautiful to me. I am working to make myself speak with intention and affirmation. Stating that I can’t or don’t or shouldn’t just gives me allowance to say that I will never be good enough. The person I need to be good enough for is myself.

I have fairly high standards as it is.

-Danger

Tags: /anxiety /friends /life /story of my life

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I am a lonely island with no pistons running in my ports.

I have only caverns of quiet sorrow waiting to be filled with a gasp of the air from the coast, and to empty with a watery sigh back out into the ocean.

The collection of islands I am a part of calls itself an “archipelago”, and I guess that’s Greek for “the tribe”. It most certainly isn’t, but whatever language it is we speak, that’s how “we” translates. This might seem as though we are a fleet, ever stationed in place as though we were moving through the ocean, never getting any closer to a continent or each other. Perfectly aligned in our formation, we fly nowhere, only make gull noises to each other when we are angry and solemn beach roar when we are tired.

“I am still not getting what I want. I want to touch the back of your right arm. I wish you could remind me who I was, cause every day I’m a little further off…”

I am only here, inches away, atoms spark between us and we could light forests ablaze. I don’t want animal passion, just a fusion so bright the sun pales in comparison. Human flesh melting to give way to human soul and communion of sand and water and sky and palm tree. Sunsets and deserts are one in the same, it’s not just a saying, you see. I have to find a way to make the ice cream our constant and learn to taste time. (Remember, we’re not talking about drugs, we’re talking about the end of the world. Whatever, you think it’s the same thing anyway.)

What you neglect will haunt you. What you forget will always remember you. Your toys will become your enemy and everything you thought you knew will prove to be absolute illusion.

Remember that you could drift away if you forget that you are part of the mantle.

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Evolutions for the Revolution.

someone wants to devour your soul…

What the fuck are you waiting for? What’s this mystical moment of peace and stillness that you’re expecting to fall into your lap? Anxiety keeping you up?

REALIZE THIS: The very idea that is making you anxious is the very thing you are refusing to do because you are waiting for a SHIP THAT WILL NEVER FUCKING SAIL.

It is already waiting for you, but it will soon pass. There is a window of opportunity, and it’s so strange that it should be knocking on the door, but it is! Once you open the door, the window will invite you to jump through it. Don’t worry about the glass or the pain or the fall—-none of it will matter. You will get where you mean to go and you will understand why you had to do it and you are going to feel so freaking silly for waiting and waiting until you almost miss your chance.

The time is NOW. The things that seem hardest to do are probably the most necessary. Stop fighting it. Stop fighting yourself, stop making yourself excuses, and start learning when it is okay to give in to yourself, start listening to what your fear is trying to tell you.

I am most terrified that I will know something that no one else does. Or worse yet, that no one else gives two shits about. I am absolutely scared to the soul of me that my understanding of how things work and play and dance and rest will go with me to my grave. 

It’s as inevitable as being by myself in my body. No one else will see out these eyes this way, not a soul will carry my weight the way that I do. Even marriage cannot save that. Even siamese twins have differing opinions.

We all fear being alone, don’t we? How very human.

Tags: /eternity /time /cycles

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notes.

• You always have the opportunity to make it better.
• Don’t fight about semantics if you can help it.
• Don’t make assumptions. It just makes an ASS out of U and some guy named “umptions”.
• Remember that to get what you want, you do have to put work into it.
• Keep hope by your side, but remember how easy it is to lose everything.
• Get out of bed. (Seriously, stop going back to sleep.)
• Don’t try too hard—-just be ready to be yourself. Lies take a lot of work, too.
• This will be a better year.
• Look others in the eye.
• Make phone calls instead of texts, meet in person instead of calling when you can.
• The more intimidating it seems, the more likely it is that you should at least try.
• Don’t put anything off!
• Learn to find the distinction between cause and justification. If you find yourself saying “just” “but” or “only” about whatever it is, you’re making a justification.
• Trust yourself. Oh, please please, trust yourself.
• Look around you—-remember that someone out there is worse off than you. Your suffering is probably amplified by your isolation.

Tags: /list

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“New Shit!”

Here is a bit of my latest writing.

It’s so different from the things I’ve been writing since middle school. THANK GOD.

I read this piece last night at Loser Slam. Nothing feels better than to finish a piece and see your own evolution as a writer. There is so much more of this on the way. I feel like my waiting is finally starting to pay off. I just have to develop some stage presence and I’ll be hitting the ground running.

One would think that writing in the first place would be such a release, but for me, it is the finish and the reception that really feels like any kind of relief. It really does make me feel like I’m getting some kind of compensation for all my really crappy teenage rants and stuff.

I have more news and a lot more to talk about, but that was the most urgent and recent.

Love,

Danger.