Let me honest with you.
I have spent hours standing in front of a mirror, thinking of how to make myself pretty.
And as I did I wondered if my friends would be surprised to know that someone who preaches about beauty being naturally present in everyone is secretly so shallow she is two-dimensional, like the pictures she draws, the letters she writes, and the reflection she creates.
And as I did it, I somehow knew it was irrelevant and condemned myself for being an absolute fool, but in all honesty I was (And still am) unsure of exactly how much importance to place on the material, because half the world is enslaved to objects and reflections and half is entranced into theoretical principles and the two simply can't connect into any kind of realistic whole.
As I did it, I thought of how I'd tell people that self-portraits were not part of my practice, while privately I made an infinity of them, each coated in a layer of guilt.
But truthfully, I drew those self-portraits to understand, at every point in my journey, who I wanted to become. And truthfully, I will not believe our physical selves should be ignored just like I will not believe they should be idolized. And so please, bear with me if I take a break from philosophical thought to be vain, because I want to be whole, real and imaginary, practical and spiritual. I want to be beautiful, not in the way advertized everywhere but beautiful because what I see in the mirror is a vehicle to who I am inside, and in this way yes, beauty is naturally present in every single one of us, all it takes is some honesty so let me be honest with you:
I owe you this poem, because after staring into my reflection in frustration I went out to see you, and while we sat outside you called me beautiful. And when I turned to you I saw that you had found a certain depth, a certain third dimension I had failed to see in myself, and that you treasured me, both halves of me. And it all made sense, because letters become spoken words, pictures represent realities and two-dimensional reflections are but small tokens of three-dimensional selves.
I wanted to write you a love poem.
But Then there was a fire alarm, and we all had to run out of the building and stand in the snow.
As I was down there though, I thought about the poem, concentrated on the poem. Racked my brains on the poem...But Then somebody started playing guitar. And we were all freezing, so we...held hands in a big circle and started dancing in the snow.
So I do not have a poem for you today, like I said I would. And although you may think that while I was prancing about with another hundred or so people I would have been able to think about it, that was not the case! I HAVE a legitimate excuse! because just as I was about to start thinking again, the man with the guitar ripped off his mask, and turned out to be an Evil Musical Wizard. And he laughed louder than any other evil musical wizards you may have encountered before and kept on playing his guitar, so that we couldn't stop dancing in the snow, not even if we wanted to.
Now he had to be stopped, or else I would still be out there, and would not have come to meet you today, poem or no poem. So after a moment of completely logical thought, I took the only reasonable course of action: I swung my left arm, up and down, as hard as I possibly could. And it was like doing the wave, only a lot more intense. One by one, each person in the circle whipped up into the sky and slammed back down into the ground and then BAM! the human whip beat the Evil Musical Wizard in the face. They were up here, and he was below them, and in between them the guitar shattered into a million bits and...
Perhaps this sounds a bit unrealistic.
...Look, I Wanted to write you a love poem, but as I sat there, I couldn't come up with a single word that could do your smile justice. So I thought I'd say something silly, and maybe then you'd smile and everyone would see what I mean
without me having
to write anything.
The obsessive dreamer stands on a fresh patch of thin air, and time has stopped.
Is he falling or flying? Hard to say. Either way, he reaches up and tries to grab a star in each hand, from his eyes it looks like they're so close. Just if he reached up you see? he could take them as his own.
(Or is it an illusion?)
_______
The obsessive realist stands- No, sits or lies on the cool dirt and sighs.
This is his place.
To see the centuries pass by (Only that he will close his eyes so nothing changes). And he will never do great things, but in his mind there is no risk, no way to fail.
________
(Who's better off?)
rain
knocks on my window and the wind is screeching
outside
what a liberating sound, screaming and thunder and almighty
rain
like all the world is clapping
and all that protects me from it is a glass plate
I am very quiet
and my room and the glass plate are all very quiet but lightning
still comes right inside and
I’m scared because
but I’m not scared of the weight of the blankets
and the four solemn walls and the room where
nobody not even the rain
is clapping
and not even of the glass plate and the
closed door that protect it from me going
out and telling the wind and lighting that it
is not polite to be so loud.
It smells horrible in here. My fish died. I flushed it away two weeks ago
and here it is
still rotting in its bowl.
I can’t stand it, maybe with enough waiting
and ignoring it’ll just go away.
Its eyes still look at me. They won’t move or blink.
So I put a dirty t-shirt on top of the bowl.
And put on a sweater, for good measure.
And go in bed.
And hide under the covers.
(All the way here, it’s staring at
I lift the cloth from it and take it away.
The fish spins, and even now it’s looking at m-
There’s a hand on my shoulder. Somebody’s here
Who
Else is looking?
I wake up, jump out of bed. Stop to catch my breath.
It smells horrible in here. My fish died. I flushed it away two weeks ago
and here it is
still rotting in its bowl.
I pray for words.
Because so far, the things I say are often not the things that matter. In their place, there's empty sequences of sound, made to fill the silence and fool me into thinking something worthwhile's going on. That way life's easier. It just requires no pain from me, no exposure of the beliefs I forged over a thousand restless nights.
But this doesn't fill me up. It just allows me to live a little longer, to cover up the blood spilling from a piece of my soul that isn't really there-And seeing Them! Those who are complete and able to to word up the unspeakable, the truth in their heart, the defying opinions, and make the very air near them glow with bliss and freedom. They make me want to speak. Really speak.
Pray, for the courage to do so.
___
I pray for words.
Because so far, the things I say are often not the things I mean. The soft white lies spilling from so many lips for the sake of courtesy, of society's expectations. Words themselves, twisted, starved, then sent away as if they were hypocritical, instead of us.
The soft white lies that make me feel like I belong-just by locking up my soul in a box that'll make me look like someone else, everyone else. It's meant to feel safe...but instead, it makes me paranoid-Someone will find out it's all a scam...
The soft white lies, that rarely come in groups of one. Keep them from me. Pray for the strenght to always speak the truth.
___
I pray for words.
Because so far the things I've said could have caused pain. Knowing, deep down, the pen is mightier than the sword, I've sharpened my pens, my thoughts, and my tongue to strike and hurt. Yet on the surface, I deny the fact because it makes me a murderer. And I am not the only one.
Pray, for the love to never speak in offense.
___
I pray for words.
Because so far, the things I say could be made simpler. The small temptation to expand a small fact, and fill it up with complex terms and far-fetched metaphors; so that others listening will not get it and think I'm some kind of wise guru. And then respect me?
No. Words are meant to be understood; to bring us together, not place us apart.
Pray, for the integrity to speak for the sake of meaning and not the fading beauty of words alone.
___
I pray for words.
Because so far, I could have said less. Cluttering the air with words, any words, because silence is frightening. Making it harder to know which bits of conversation are actually more than background noise that keeps me from noticing real life is still waiting.
Pray...for the wisdom to know when to fall silent.
___