No Blame –

“When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.”
Elizabeth Gilbert,
Eat, Pray, Love
“All great and precious things are lonely.” ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
society–killed–the–teenager
When I complain about being alone I have a person, an event, or self deprecating fault in mind as to the cause of this loneliness. I want to blame something. It’s because so and so left me, or my parents didn’t raise me right, or I’m so (insert self deprecating comment) that no one wants me. I’ve learned a lesson in the last few weeks as I ruminated over this and realized that there are times when it’s meant for me to be alone. There’s no one to blame, fate and divinity have ordained it. There is nothing I can do to stop it, it must be endured. I’ll be betrayed, forsaken, abandoned, used, lied about, or just plain left alone by all my friends and family. It’ll happen to me and you regardless of where we are or our social standing. Fighting against it by coercing companionship or drowning the feeling with substances or mindless activity only prolongs the agony, for unless I accept this solitary moment and let it work the work that needs to be done, I’m forestalling my personal growth, spiritually and inwardly, i.e. there are times when I need to be alone.
The flip side is -it hurts and it’s tough to persevere. I need swallow this bitter pill and go on to a more palatable existence but I’m not sure if I’m ready to accept my own advice as I struggle through the agony of each moment, plagued by tears and a deep ache in my stomach. It’s harder to live the truth than to know it.
First Published in Opinions Of Eye
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Levity –

“The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
angel-in-the-wind
Passing around hard thoughts,
Skipping through rough consequences
Rebuking the threats that abound
A break deserved brought about by
my sweet Levity.
The feasts are prepared,
a peaceful interlude is granted
smiles endure and the future ignored
an intermission paid in full by
my sweet Levity.
All memories are her ethereal songs,
Sweet lullabies sung before the never setting sun
Her persistent touch rocking the cradle
New life borne in light by
my sweet Levity.
First published in Opinionsofeye.com

Awkward Reasons –

God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are reasons why at times my interactions with people seem strained. I say the wrong things. I limp through my social circles, everyone making way for my awkward presence. I bring up subjects deep and poignant. I provoke thoughts, thoughts you’re not accustomed to. I speak in a way you find odd. My accent tainted, not pure, not from any one place. The same with my mannerisms. I fidget with my hands in a crowd, unsure of how to hold them. I wonder if the way I’m standing is threatening. If a purse is left close to me, I walk away, believing you’ll accuse me if something is missing. Trying to drive with a thousand choices that are made instantly, provokes these social swerves that seem ungainly and make others uncomfortable. 

 
Do you know that this isn’t me? This isn’t how I am, constrained to behave oddly, chained to a limp of the soul and mind. Do you know I’m injured? Do you know I almost died because of love? Do you know I fought for my life many times, not from just physical beatings but mental torture and illness? Do you know that I’ve argued for my release from beatings given, many, many times?
 
Do you know how these scars make it hard to smile? The hardened skin refusing to release the joy struggling to stay alive in the poisonous atmosphere of my melancholic soul? Do you know the thousand thoughts I think just to go out the door? Checking my clothes, the color of my skin, the dark circles under my eyes, the length of my nose, the girth of my belly? Do you know that walking to my car creates anxiety? I grab my keys like a weapon; I make sure I always have a knife, though these things have never delivered me from violence or comforted me. Do you know that I struggle with violence a hundred times an hour? Not only my self-imposed violence toward me or others, but of the perceived violence I see directed at me in every face? 
 
Do you know that I always try to help others? Do you know though having been burned 99 times out of hundred, I still reach out, thinking that everyone believes I’m a sucker? Thinking that they all talk among themselves, working out plans to rob me of my time, energy, and money? Do you know that I know you are using me? Do you know that I still give in spite of this? There are reasons, stop and consider why.
 
Take time to realize that the people you know and see everyday are hurt and wounded. Look out from your struggle and know that a friend, a family member, a bartender, a cashier, is on their last thread of hope, wanting to die from the pain they feel. Reach out with compassion on those who irritate you, understand that the scars they bear make it difficult to respond with graciousness toward you and your problems. We are all in this together, make room in the survival raft for those drowning in despair. Act without requiring a suicide note or a midnight call from the police before you reach out…

Also published in Broowaha Magazine
First published in Opinionsofeye.com
02082012

Pieces – Beautiful when held away from memories –

“Sometimes I wonder if we ever truly let anyone completely in. The desire for another human being to know you, all of you, all the pieces, even the ones you’re ashamed of — is huge. But too often, we sit down and sort through the pieces only picking out the pretty ones, leaving the ugly ones behind, not realizing that choosing not to share with someone else is like committing a crime against our very soul” ― Rachel Van Dyken, Toxic
 
pozadia

Pieces. Making up a whole, many parts nested together, each influencing another, producing new parts by virtue of the interaction. I pick out a few, examine them closely and find interesting details. They’re beautiful, when held away from the fray of the many tentacled reach of memories and fantasies. After holding them up to the light, seeing their potential array, I shudder to place them back into the filthy nest of my mind. Pulling out the best pieces, I shake them violently to break them free from the sticky strands of complexity and insanity. It encourages me to see the good in the midst of the shadowy world of loathing self esteem. I go through life in this juggling act, bringing out the best, keeping them out front, trying to not corrupt them or damage them. It’s true that others caused the breaks in my beautiful things, but I cannot put them away, even if it means harm, they’re all that I believe is good in me.

First published in Opinions Of Eye
03162012

Raven – Destruction of Mania

“Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.” Charles Caleb Colton
 
delivermetoevil

The shadows always follow,

to conduct
a hazing of content.
Strange the surreal look
of thunderheads.
When these clouds of doubt
finally break,
I’ll rise from the ashes
this fiery collapsed
fortress of thought.
A thousand oil fields,
with their derricks
furiously pounding,
all working to find treasure
hidden in my mind.
The raven passes these
violators of mind’s defense
and taps the fury to build
a fire from broken dreams.

If you need help for racing thoughts, GET IT

Also Published in Wingposse 

05162011


Raven – Destruction of Mania

“Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.” Charles Caleb Colton
 
delivermetoevil

The shadows always follow,

to conduct
a hazing of content.
Strange the surreal look
of thunderheads.
When these clouds of doubt
finally break,
I’ll rise from the ashes
this fiery collapsed
fortress of thought.
A thousand oil fields,
with their derricks
furiously pounding,
all working to find treasure
hidden in my mind.
The raven passes these
violators of mind’s defense
and taps the fury to build
a fire from broken dreams.

If you need help for racing thoughts, GET IT

Also Published in Wingposse 

05162011


Grey – A peek from under the wet blanket

It’s an art to live with pain… mix the light into gray.” – Eddie Vedder
late-on-time

Listen, while I tell you a story of grey. The grey wraps around my soul in a haze of unwanted anxiety, a watered down black, like dark swirls in spoiled milk. These streaks of deteriorated joy cover my lens, my warm blanket soaked with fruitless tears. Feelings are sharp and cutting, nothing is gained by the sorrow. My grey love backfires, I point it toward her but the pain is set loose on my soul. This grey soaks me, in vain I try to keep myself warm in the breeze of cool emotion. Grey is my elixir of madness. I drink deep from the drought of darkness gone bad. Stormy clouds gather, a condensation of holiness evaporated from the lake of my soul, leaving it a lifeless puddle of unfathomable sorrow. Now you know of my affliction my curious companion, my lifelong condition of grey. Pray that you escape its mesmerizing effects and that you with the brightness of healthy hope, avoid this quicksand of a tortured mind.

For help with depression: Symptoms, Warnings, Solutions
05312012

Diary of a Mad Man – Living with mental illness

“No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” ― Aristotle

sagennext

They said to me, “Walk!”. My feet wouldn’t move, frozen by the accident. Appendages that are normally useful, mobile, and independent, I drag them along, taking care that I don’t injure them. The accident, as I call it, was not an accident, but a purposeful intended act, inspired by lust and hate. What they did to me I cannot tell, the acts so horrific. Regardless of the details of their brutal incursion, what I was left with is a handicap, one of the mind, not the body. Having to make do with a shredded normality, crawling through my life, instead of walking, never able to run. What was taken for granted, now became a challenge for me. While others run, leap, climb, and move about with impunity to mental mobility. I must develop new ways, ways that hurt, ways that require intense concentration, intense discipline. Still they taunt me, “get up and walk”, “why can’t you just be like the rest of us”. They can’t see I’m disabled, bound by forces that were neither chosen, nor desired, but forced on me in a cruel and harsh manner.


My injury cannot be seen, my useless legs are a shattered self-esteem, a mind crippled from ever thinking in a sane manner again. Insanity, psychosis, visions, voices, nightmares, self-deprecating thoughts, and accusations invade my every waking moment. Perceptions of reality and fantasy mix together, making the deciphering of fact and fiction a huge effort in itself. All day, every day, I roll around in a mental wheelchair, like one with paralyzed legs, committed to implements of bothersome necessity. I watch the heads wag, “Tsk, tsk. Quit being a pansy, just get up and walk”. Damn it! Can’t you see I can’t freaking walk? Can’t you see that it takes me longer to do normal things? I must make preparations for the ordinary, that which you do without an effort takes me great pains to produce, to perform, to succeed.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself, I’m a success and exceedingly happy, and in these I’ll continue, but the insensitivity of others upsets me. Refusing patience with, or acceptance of the fact, that I’m not like them. I cannot get up in the morning and be without fear, I cannot go into a crowd and relax, I cannot be in the dark. Paranoia haunts me, I sense conspiracies coming from everyone, from everything. Shame burns in me, flushing my cheeks at the least exposure of my faults or idiosyncrasies. My mind races with thousands of thoughts a minute, deep thoughts, all of them.

I ask for no special treatment, just for a bit of patience with me as you accompany me on my journey through this world. Please, not only with me, but with the many others afflicted in a like manner, be sure you understand that although the pain of mental illness is not visible, it does handicap us from doing things in a normal manner. Be patient with crazy people, we really are cool, even if it takes us awhile to work our way through the battlefields of life.

Also published in Broowaha

12282011 

Russian Roulette – Inside the mind of one pushed to far

 I slid bullets into the chamber, spinning the cylinder, my world balancing on a razor’s edge, looking down the barrel of the gun.

That was how it ended up, but the beginning was only moments before…

a-sinister-kidd

The cabinet was open. I fancied the .38, it’s slight sheen producing a dull rainbow of metallic colors. I loaded it with hollow points, short and thick, like me. Looking curiously at the soft lead, its deep hole a receptacle for my soul, I held it up to my temple. Looking, without seeing, in the glass of the gun cabinet, my reflection taunted me, but I felt nothing, ignoring the repeating insults. Not satisfied, I put the cold barrel in my mouth, tasting the metal and bitter gunpowder residue. I cocked the hammer back, almost slipping, figures I would shoot myself before I was ready, just like the rest of my life, fumbling and awkward. My heart hurt, my chest was heavy, depression, lost love, rejection, a lifetime of bullshit. I always ended up a loner, never popular or following a crowd, no entourage to accompany me through my days. I’ve shared my experiences with many lovers, counselors, friends, acquaintances, and drinking partners. Many stared in disbelief, claiming I was full of shit, no one could have all that happen to them, so many horrific events…I would gather my brokenness together, and stuff it back inside. No matter how I tried, no one would believe me. No one believed the rapes, the molestations, the beatings, the humiliations, the rejections, the tortures, the fear, the disconnected feeling of having no family, a stranger everywhere, the loneliness. Loneliness and fear, they followed me everywhere, and now I sat next to them, with this instrument of death, toying with my life. I held it for a long time, feeling the coolness of the barrel, playing with the trigger, testing the pressure needed, which, being modified, was barely a touch, a hair-trigger. I felt the texture of the pistol’s grip and holding it up backwards, stared down the black hole to infinity. Intriguing, I can leave this place in a second. I can end all the pain, the despair, so easily. This wasn’t the first time, oh no, I did this before, this time though, I felt tears lubricating my will decreasing my resistance, from attempt to success. My stomach felt, hollow, a deep hunger gnawing at me, a hunger for someone to care enough to reach out, but how could they? No one knew. When I did tell them, they wouldn’t believe be, laughing at times, staring in disbelief. I admired the gun, it offered no ridicule, only relief. I loaded it again, emptying the chambers, reloading, emptying, reloading. I had control over nothing in my life, being forced, with no mercy, to do the will of others, who had no remorse or compassion at what they did to me, to my mind. I was beautiful, my mind whole and brilliant. Now, my mind suffered violence. Daily, the visions rushed in to terrify me, thoughts racing down black paths of paranoia, self loathing, violence, and lust. The pistol gave me power, I could change the course of my life, not only mine, but I could execute revenge on those, my tormentors, my mockers, the laughing crowd that refused to respect me, or at least respect the fact that I could end their lives in a hot quick second. Would they poke a bear in the eye? No, they respected that the bear would tear them to shreds. They would respect an animal, but not me. That’s really funny to me. I smiled many times, through my shame, back at them. My mind hadn’t lost its brilliance, it just was transformed from lightness to darkness, creating a monster. I dreamed of how I would torture them, tease them, watch them puff up with pride thinking that their size, their alliances, their mind, would grant them advantage and victory at every turn. I smiled at them, through my tears, their life in my hands. I thought how easy it would be to make a name for myself, to ravage the bullies and tear their life apart they way they did mine….so easy, so easy. But for now, I pulled the trigger on me.



Also published in Broowaha 
12142011

Russian Roulette – Inside the mind of one pushed to far

 I slid bullets into the chamber, spinning the cylinder, my world balancing on a razor’s edge, looking down the barrel of the gun.

That was how it ended up, but the beginning was only moments before…

a-sinister-kidd

The cabinet was open. I fancied the .38, it’s slight sheen producing a dull rainbow of metallic colors. I loaded it with hollow points, short and thick, like me. Looking curiously at the soft lead, its deep hole a receptacle for my soul, I held it up to my temple. Looking, without seeing, in the glass of the gun cabinet, my reflection taunted me, but I felt nothing, ignoring the repeating insults. Not satisfied, I put the cold barrel in my mouth, tasting the metal and bitter gunpowder residue. I cocked the hammer back, almost slipping, figures I would shoot myself before I was ready, just like the rest of my life, fumbling and awkward. My heart hurt, my chest was heavy, depression, lost love, rejection, a lifetime of bullshit. I always ended up a loner, never popular or following a crowd, no entourage to accompany me through my days. I’ve shared my experiences with many lovers, counselors, friends, acquaintances, and drinking partners. Many stared in disbelief, claiming I was full of shit, no one could have all that happen to them, so many horrific events…I would gather my brokenness together, and stuff it back inside. No matter how I tried, no one would believe me. No one believed the rapes, the molestations, the beatings, the humiliations, the rejections, the tortures, the fear, the disconnected feeling of having no family, a stranger everywhere, the loneliness. Loneliness and fear, they followed me everywhere, and now I sat next to them, with this instrument of death, toying with my life. I held it for a long time, feeling the coolness of the barrel, playing with the trigger, testing the pressure needed, which, being modified, was barely a touch, a hair-trigger. I felt the texture of the pistol’s grip and holding it up backwards, stared down the black hole to infinity. Intriguing, I can leave this place in a second. I can end all the pain, the despair, so easily. This wasn’t the first time, oh no, I did this before, this time though, I felt tears lubricating my will decreasing my resistance, from attempt to success. My stomach felt, hollow, a deep hunger gnawing at me, a hunger for someone to care enough to reach out, but how could they? No one knew. When I did tell them, they wouldn’t believe be, laughing at times, staring in disbelief. I admired the gun, it offered no ridicule, only relief. I loaded it again, emptying the chambers, reloading, emptying, reloading. I had control over nothing in my life, being forced, with no mercy, to do the will of others, who had no remorse or compassion at what they did to me, to my mind. I was beautiful, my mind whole and brilliant. Now, my mind suffered violence. Daily, the visions rushed in to terrify me, thoughts racing down black paths of paranoia, self loathing, violence, and lust. The pistol gave me power, I could change the course of my life, not only mine, but I could execute revenge on those, my tormentors, my mockers, the laughing crowd that refused to respect me, or at least respect the fact that I could end their lives in a hot quick second. Would they poke a bear in the eye? No, they respected that the bear would tear them to shreds. They would respect an animal, but not me. That’s really funny to me. I smiled many times, through my shame, back at them. My mind hadn’t lost its brilliance, it just was transformed from lightness to darkness, creating a monster. I dreamed of how I would torture them, tease them, watch them puff up with pride thinking that their size, their alliances, their mind, would grant them advantage and victory at every turn. I smiled at them, through my tears, their life in my hands. I thought how easy it would be to make a name for myself, to ravage the bullies and tear their life apart they way they did mine….so easy, so easy. But for now, I pulled the trigger on me.



Also published in Broowaha 
12142011