Internal Dialogue

“Inside it felt like the hardest thing in the world. To just let go, and not pick everything to death. To just let go and enjoy what you had. To just let go and not make everybody around you miserable with your own internal dialogue. To just let go and be happy. So simple. So difficult. So terrifying.” – Laurell K. Hamilton

 

annacastrolima

 

The blind call the shots, when what’s heard isn’t seen
When I deal with me, it’s never what it seems
Though sight’s not given, still I judge the call
Crazy as it seems, when I can’t see at all

Medicating the pain, shown by blood not red
hoping to numb a shitty feeling, living in my head
Hoping desperately to find, a happy trail this way
Depression makes it hard, to get out of bed today

The movies are seen, and replayed with renewed vigor
Forever playing with, and pulling the hair trigger
Conversations bad when, the mirror won’t talk back
Only one side of me, carries on the attack

I want to sing and not cry, to take me through this time
The song I settle on, isn’t a lullaby
The mirror shuns the man and tears blur the day
The end of life it seems, points to a better way

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Running On Empty

“Work hard for what you want because it won’t come to you without a fight. You have to be strong and courageous and know that you can do anything you put your mind to. If somebody puts you down or criticizes you, just keep on believing in yourself and turn it into something positive.” – Leah LaBelle

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Days pass and years go by, then I realize, I’m getting older. This isn’t a brilliant discovery but as I age, the days seem to whisper louder about my mortality and the lack of energy to do what I normally could do is most evident. If I can sense physical fatigue, what about mental fatigue? I struggle with severe mental issues (peruse my blog and you’ll see it plainly) which result in the weird trait of arguing with people who aren’t there. Not arguing with a vision, but rehearsing in my mind what was said and what I should or shouldn’t have said. I spend an hour or so cussing people out and yelling at them when they have long left the building. In the same way, I’ll rehearse an embarrassing or shameful moment over and over in my head years after the fact. These all drain away mental and emotional energy, the ability to take of the here and now. There is a finite amount of emotion and mental convolutions that I’m able to bear. After my resources are exhausted, depression rushes in to fill the void. An apathy and usually a self destructive habit looms in the setting sun of my mind and pulls me out of the thoughts and into another hellish position.

The answer? I stop when I find myself talking to someone who isn’t there, or for that matter, who doesn’t care what I think. I stop thinking about the embarrassing moments and faux pas that crowd my mind. Then I take my antidote and think about the something that doesn’t drain me, but encourages and fills me with hope, things that are wise and spiritual. Not necessarily all holy and Jesus things, but mainly wisdom and advice I’ve gleaned from searching for escapes from the insane asylum in my head. For instance, there are places and I’ll paraphrase, in the bible where God has said, “don’t be afraid of their faces or what they say, and I’ll be with you.” Instead of thinking about an insult said to me, or about how I really screwed up this or that, I think about how my Big Daddy (my affectionate term for God) is going to help me through this and give me a decent life. That’s how I’m learning to walk instead of crawl out of anguish. Peace my friends, it’ll work out for you, don’t stop trying, don’t stop believing.

Going Gently Into That Good Night

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
― Stephen Hawking

                         The Crossing Over

When from birth the swaddling of obscurity
Covers my face with the harsh reality of life

How will I discover my soul and carry
the torch of meaningful purpose to my progeny?

Left with only the struggles of faith and doubt
over what my life should be or have been.

Why do I live, why has God given me breath?
Why go at all into the void of the living?

Of what purpose can it be to drag my soul
through a thousands horrors only to be reborn?

Does it matter at all and why
when I breath for the last time?

And then He whispers,
“That you may know me, this is your purpose”

It’s a fact of life that we
become disenchanted by joy without pain

And barely fight to know someone or something
unless extinction threatens to take them or it away

 

Imperfect

“I realize the imperfections in this composition, and I left it so because we’re all imperfect and need to accept the message of who we are and not what they say we are.”

I wish I were clay
then I could change myself
everyday

Today I should be this and
tomorrow I should be that
and for the moment
society says I’m fat

But not so long ago and
in other royal cultures so
this was a good to go

But merely because times
have changed and lenses
have different colors

I’m resigned to serving
like slaves in chains
I’ll be your skinny mistress

I am whatever you say I am (Eminem)
and that, by the whims of
a psychotic society

And even in writing if I forget
to dot an I or a comma I relent
of that you’ll never forget

I’ll be forever judged and that
it’s a fact of this life
YOU WILL NEVER BE ACCEPTED

Except by those who understand
that hats turned back and
hats turned to the side
are all a part
of the same ride

Alone –

 “Imaginary lovers
Never turn you down
When all the others turn you away
They’re around
It’s my private pleasure
Midnight fantasy
Someone to share my
Wildest dreams with me” 

– Atlanta Rhythm Section

 

DreamWind

I’d do anything to keep from being alone, pay any price, be used to the “nth” degree and never say a word. Being used is better than being alone but it stings knowing the object of my affection will hurt me, maim my spirit, and destroy my forward progress. Still, I follow hard after her, giving all to maintain that relationship and avoid the terrors of being alone. What compromises have I willing conceded to? What violations of my self-esteem and personal space have I allowed for unrequited affection? What tortures has my heart been through, my body feeling the wretch of emotions that sets my nerves on fire? Being addicted, not to a substance, but to a world of egocentric affection that I’ve created by taking the object of my affection and embellishing her to a fantastic degree. I should know better, I do know better. The voices of friends and family, concerned that I am “being used”, try to slap me awake. Ignoring their advice, pushing away the voice of truth, I continue to live a world that only I see. Go away you bearers of truth, you wreckers of dreams, this is my world, I will not see it in your light! I take my script and apply it haphazardly, patching up the holes in the dike containing my empty dreams. Eagerly lapping up my lack of self-control and willful delusion, the protagonist in my play continues to feed my world of facades with empty compliments, cool affections, and eyes empty of love.  One day I’ll wake up and grab hold of myself, one day I’ll acknowledge this self-imposed hell, one day…but for now, I look at her and imagine how she loves me.

Also published in Broowaha

012112

Yet I Live

“Nothing is better for self-esteem than survival.”

 ― Martha Gellhorn, Travels With Myself and Another 

moluscators

If not for the Lord, my life is lost, my soul buried beneath issues and vanities. In my longing for a father, I find it in Him. He teaches me wisdom and picks me up when I’ve once again skinned my spiritual knees. When I make mistakes, and they’re many, when I choose the wrong road, and that’s often, He forgives, directs, and provides for me. This is my testimony that thus far, I shouldn’t have made it alive, much less profitably, and still I’m here. My way is full of enemies who hate for no reason, other than color, or jealousy, or because I refuse to die. I’ve seen them tapping their foot, looking at their watches wondering, “When will he fade out?” For that I’ll give thanks again to my Daddy, my heavenly father, who puts light back into the burnt out shell of me. The devils know me as I walk past, whispering “Thissss issss he who left us and yet lives!” Yes, I live, at times only a breath away from crossing over to the evil camps of malignant foreboding that shudder with anger at my betrayal. My body belongs to that camp but with the help of my Father, I’m able to choose whether or not I stay there. That choice is my everlasting evidence that God is real, for where He to be my fantasy, surely you’d read of the savagery of my soul and the punishment of madness that overcame my mind. Thank you Father for the self control you give me and teach me to use. Those choices are hard, and as with all discipline, painful. I press on, with no turning back, to see what things will be revealed in the blasted lands of my life.

No One Can See

“It’s just some instinct as old as fear: you seek the dark when you hide, you seek the light when the need to hide is gone. All the animals have it too. (“New York Blues”)”
– Cornell Woolrich, Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories 

 

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Flee my soul into the tide

Dive my soul into the night

No one can see

 

Float again, soon to be

The flavor of lust again in thee

No one can see

 

Something beyond calling to me

To gather my strength and give esteem

No one can see

 

Hiding alone amongst the trees,

again I rejoice in the fallen leaves

No one can see

 

Flying through the depths of seas

in the caves are heavens keys

No one can see

No one can see

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Stinger – Fighting doubt

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

Tickle in my brain, flying around in there
Nettle from the wings, wings without air.

Brother to it’s flight, a needle of doubt

The sting will be sure, no way out.

I flinch from the pain, it pierces my defense

Pushing without mercy, sparing no expense

I feel the poison rush, numbing as it goes

Fiercely it corrupts, putting hope in death throes

I shake myself aware, knowing I won’t let go

To pull this ugly thing out, to stop the ebbing flow

Strength from the deep, I brace once more for pain

Doubt resurrects, it’ll keep coming back again.

Also published in Wingposse, September 2012 

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The Dust – Apathy exposes your cracks

“Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can’t make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don’t get back on track somehow, I’m dead, that’s the sense I get. 
There isn’t a single strong emotion inside me.” ― Banana Yoshimoto
 

 

 

You see beauty everywhere, your supposed to be happy. Your not.
You see people laughing, your supposed to be a part. Your not.
You see tears falling, your supposed to feel. Your not.

You see beauty everywhere, your supposed to be happy. Your not.
You see people laughing, your supposed to be a part. Your not.
You see prayers offered, your suppose to do that. Your not.

You see tears falling, your supposed to feel. Your not.
You see life passing, your supposed to do something. Your not.

And worst of all, you just don’t care. I mean you really, really, don’t care. About anything.

It’s death you feel in every little crack of your soul.

Like dust collecting, this death accumulates in the small areas of your life.

But wait you walking dead! Be encouraged!

There’s life again, a spring cleaning as it were, rising from the dust of death in your life.

You must quiet yourself and stop running to the next thing that will numb you.

You must quiet yourself and wait to hear the voice of your maker calling after you.

You must quiet yourself and pray to the one who has the love that will make you whole.

I’ve felt the death that living life can bring, and I’ve felt the arms of my Father,

Those arms have made me strong enough to live and be safe from the dust.

 

Also published in Broowaha Magazine

01082011

Skin – Yours feels good on me

Be forewarned: This is a creative application of an analogy

“The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.”  – Mark Twain

 

“It’s a sad man my friend who’s livin’ in his own skin and can’t stand the company.”                             – Bruce Springsteen

 

ad libitum

Pulling out my favorite skin, one of the many I’ve gathered over the course of years, I pushed one foot through, then pulling it over my head, stood up and turned around. There, now I’m complete. I looked in the mirror, this skin is tight, it doesn’t quite fit. “After all my hunting to find the perfect fit, damn.” These things change you know, in the night while your sleeping, they shrink and grow taking on their own wild destiny. It’s hard to pull out the men, the women, from their skins. I yank and tug, making little cuts to release the flesh, loving when it just falls off, but that usually meant someone else had the same idea, using it to hide, or rather, to enhance their look. My collection is extensive and ever changing. I pulled some off of religious fanatics, some from thugs, some from pretty boy hair bands. I yanked a couple off some bikers and even a lawyer couldn’t escape my scheming thievery. All skin is beautiful by virtue of hiding mine. I sit looking in the mirror at my latest acquisition. I sure look good in it, wish I could move though, it always rips when I go outside. No worries though, I’ll keep yanking and saving them and perhaps sew them together. I’ll find one that fits and works eventually. I wish they wouldn’t leave marks on me, it blows my cover when you see pieces that obviously don’t fit on me. I’ll make excuses and hold it on while I scurry to pull another skin over the unfinished parts of me.

Also Published in: Wingposse Magazine, April 2013

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