Memories
Memories are never the same. Not anymore.
When you where here I wrapped them around me in warm folds of living experience. They were a connection between us, something we could share. Now they never wrap, only choke.
Even when I sleep I can only cling to their surface, drag them towards me and hope they can keep from falling.
Falling apart and all I can do is peer into my memories and watch pieces go missing. Some robber in the night, some human instinct, is stealing you away from me in pieces…until the pieces are gone, and bits of me go missing. I don’t even know where I fit anymore. My shape has changed.
Don’t even recognize myself, can’t focus. I just don’t fit. I just can’t find my place in this world, as though, it no longer exists. Without purpose, I can’t breath.
I can’t breath, and I want to move on. To leave and find my place again, a place where I can fit perfectly. But they are holding me here. They who need me and who I love. They who I use to help. Why do I keep hurting them? Why can’t I stop….hurting. Hurting. So broken and not wanting to be fixed because that would mean letting go. But you can’t fix others when you’re broken yourself. And out go’s my purpose in one fail sentence. I suppose I should have guessed that sentence would come. It was always leading here.
Leading here, over and over, finding its way towards me. Even as I was happy, even as my purpose worked, it was sneaking into my place with fail strokes, fatal mistakes-destroying everything I made. Everyone I loved. And now here it comes; coming for me in memory. Coming for me in my words. Everything I do has begun to fail and fall apart since my memories have gone missing.
One at a time they wander off, sometimes so completely absent, that I believe they may have been in on this all along-are still in it-and involved in some elaborate plan to tear my character apart. Understandable now why they buried themselves in my core, my essence, and became such an intimate item in my personality. Like getting close to someone only to destroy them. Treacherous things.
Its been a while…?
Been a while since I’ve written.
Been a while since I could right.
Since I could point out all the wrongs that haunt the darkness of my night.
Been nothing much worth reading,
My apologies, I’m sure.
But I keep finding myself trapped in days,
I’m sure I can’t endure.
I’m so calm,
So god damn…quiet.
They see someone, stoic and wise.
I guess I cannot blame them for their infinite surprise,
At my emotion.
…when I give it rise.
Not near often enough to stay alive.
But here I am, and I can’t die,
No matter how I wish or try,
Because of they who find solitude in my tilted ear.
The listening, and answering that seems all I am capable of.
All that I will do, until they wear me thin,
and then more often after that, until there is nothing left of me,
They will destroy me.
Tear me apart with they’re urgent need,
Their desperate pleas,
Their wants, their wants.
Their self justified assurance that the world owes them something,
and I will give it to them.
What a world.
What a place?
What a place to live and die,
But no place, I’ve found, for the living dead,
Here only to serve the needs of everyone else.
And I can’t say no.
No is too cruel.
No takes away my purpose.
A purpose, which, though killing me,
I cannot live without.
I need to help them,
Need to fix their worlds,
Need to teach,
To observe,
<>
<>
<>To learn.
<>I need their wants.
I need. Their wants.
My need, their wants,
Desiring, and designing,
And tearing me apart.
As thoroughly as I try to hold myself together for their sake.
Crazy. All of us and all of them,
And myself much too sane to be anywhere near write.
Near wrong.
Near righting anything.
And I find, though it is slower,
Trying to help everyone is a more sure form of suicide.
More sure than any affair with a gun, or knife.
Any sordid diet of pills or poisons.
Or a dance with the hands of a friendly noose.
This I cannot talk myself out of.
It does not feel foolish, or selfish.
I cannot say no to it.
I am incapable…
And surely, though slowly,
They will pull me into darkness.
A darkness where I am as strong,
As dependable,
As they imagine me.
And as lost,
As alone,
As quiet as they assume I already am.
What makes you any better?
What makes you any better?
Can I ask? Is that alright?
What makes you any better than a sneak thief in the night?
What justifies your purpose?
What makes it fair at all?
For you to be so big and we so small?
What gives you the right to take him?
What gives you insight to say,
That any given death, is better any given day?
Expectations
Expectation is a request, a sort-of gentle beckoning to the gods. Like saying, “You wouldn’t mind would you, just maybe…you know. If you have the time that is…could you possibly leave me stranded on 4th street? I know it’s alot to ask.” It’s a passive request, maybe you weren’t even serious when you asked it, but its asking for it either way. Expectation is a remark made in sarcasm, “when pigs fly” but when they do? What can you say? Expectation gives permission to fate to do exactly what you dread, or to revoke the thing you hope for. Expectation invites disappointment. Even if it’s not something you wanted.
Like when you’re sure of the monster hidden in the corner. When you find out its just the shirt you’ve hung up for wednesday, you are slightly disappointed. There’s all that adreniline and no way to use it. That feeling of relief, sure, but in the end isn’t relief just a different form of disappointment? And if you get something you want, there’s still no happiness. You were expecting it. Why shouldn’t it come? Expectation takes the “OI!” out of joy. No surprise. Just acceptance. Wheres the fun in that?.
You get so much more satisfaction from something you’re sure won’t come. So much more thrill; because when you simply accept something, it can only ever be as good as you expected it to be, sometimes not even that. But when something comes unexpectedly-by surprise-you cannot be disappointed, or even merely relieved. The unexpected always exeeds our expectations because…well. Because we had none.
Expectation gives permission for betrayal. If you expect someone to betray you, and they do, you can only blame yourself. But if you trust them, and they turn against you, thats a different matter entirely. Trust makes you work towards something better. Expectation…you don’t care much either way.
When we expect, we don’t feel the need to work for or against. We merely sit awaiting the inevitable. Often, merely to find out that the inevitable was not entirely as permanent as we imagined it could be. If we sit lamely by and wait for our promotion, it will probably not come. And if we sit by prophecying our untimely demise. The end of the world. Our perishing in the fiery depths of sin…I imagine it will come without much fuss. We have to fight. Fight for what we want, or fight against what we’re afraid is certain, but fight for something, because if we don’t, why are we alive at all? If we don’t work towards somewhere, or at least try to keep moving forward, what’s the point? Whats the point at all of sitting in the same place our entire lives waiting for the world to come to us. Why not meet it half-way? I know it’s a strange thought…and I am a strange person, but why not? Why not be better and less afraid? It’s not so hard as we’d expect it to be. We could change the world. We could change ourselves. And maybe in the process, we could change our expectations of how everything should be.
Perfect
Perfection does not exist, at least not as a realistic goal. Perfection is merely something we attempt our entire lives and never achieve-it is impossible to achieve-because once you reach “perfection” where do you have left to go? Perfection is ugly, and therefore no longer perfect because the beauty in anything is found in its flaws, not its assets. No, there is no perfect. Not like that.
Perfection is found, only in context. Where something fits perfectly, like a puzzle piece, or a shirt. Everything, everyone has someplace where they belong. Where they fit; where they are perfect. Every one. In our lives we are allowed small moments of perfection. Times where we fit, it all fits perfectly into place and we just want time to stop right there, because it is all so clear and wonderful in that one moment. We know where we belong in time and space, but only for a second. Sadly it is often lost when the instant has passed. Maybe we only wanted that perfect, so we created it for ourselves. But in the larger scheme of things, perfection is always in our minds anyway. Perfect moments-perfect pieces of time-are what make us aspire to be better people. Better people, for a better world.
People aspire to be more like there is some end goal to reach. How ridiculous is that? The closest to perfection we can ever come, is to constantly improve. To always try to be better than we have already been. To aspire. Aspire to something bigger than ourselves. For the benefit of the world and everyone around us.
Religious people will tell you that there is a dark end. A fiery demise of Armagedon which our sins are leading us down to with no escape. Many believe there is no way to avoid or delay this horrifying future. Why? Why can’t we change what is to come? Why can’t we be perfect? Why is this such a hopeless dream? I don’t understand…I can’t believe that we have no control or choice. And we do have the choice. I know we do. We can fix this. We can be good. Aspire to be better people, and we can control what is to come.
We have reached an inpass, and we must choose. I hope we can choose to be incredible…wonderful. Because if we don’t, the end is inevitable and there is nothing to aspire to anymore.
