And I have dawned these great dark seas and jungles before
They have long come for me. I have twisted in their wrath and shook in their cold as the sweat of their toxins ran down my brow
You who seeks to protect me while destroying me, what are you truly seeking?
For your paranoia has made you a fool. A tyrant, yeast in its palm.
Calling yourself holy while riddled with holes seeping poison.
I am the keeper of this forest of green. My winds are strong, the brown of my dirt is beastly, and the shake of my ground is earth shattering.
So, who are you to call upon my land? You bring your dented sword to fight the poachers while simultaneously leading them straight to my centers.
Sometimes you want so much to be the keeper, to be the wrath of good, to be the honest gallant, but find that while fighting these hard battles and stepping with agony through each field, that you are the villain you’ve been running from.
So, step aside and let this evil you bring with you come for me. Kneel while they tear me flesh from flesh. Turn away your head while gnash my teeth away.
Let. Them. Come.
For they know who I am.
I have spent much in solitude in preparation for your treachery.
My heart guarded with the thickest of water from the deepest and darkest seas.
If I fall in defeat, you will still be there kneeling, and you and your army will be swallowed by my earth. You will drown in the water of my roots and in turn, revive me again.
And there I shall be in my forest of green yet again, with you beneath my beastly brown, and sentenced to a lifetime of earthquakes beneath my worn feet.
My whole world has become complacent lately. Feeling like a machine with my heart renewed on an assembly line by a conveyor belt each day only for it to be broken into pieces once again. Broken heart after broken heart. I am a born again living dead girl. Floating around preparing myself for the next jab. A pride carried from a naive heart who only felt she had gotten at least one thing right in her fragile, brittle life.
Take that molded rug right out from under me. Over and over again until the bends of these knees that have prayed for you shatter in two. While I lay here, a puddle of poison and battered, I will finally admit to myself that it was a facade.
With every strength and effort in me to break a cycle and do it better than those who had come before me, I have seemingly failed. I lied to myself and continue to do so. And since that was the only good that was ever in me, I’m emptied of a want to. I am hollowed with a who am I. I am robbed of a purpose.
Convinced now that I everywhere I turn, everything is polished before I get there, and rusted out by the time I pass through.
Damaged goods. Homeless.
How does one who is broken time and time again, die inside, and then awaken again to die once more but never stay dead?
When I said I’d take the pain of this world off of you if I could, I never knew or imagined that it would mean that I would take not only the pain, but the weight of every ocean, the blame, and every ounce of hate and resentment that had passed through the vicinity of us.
But even so, torn limb from limb, I steady myself to stand once again with half the sun rising on my beaten face, to take my place on that front line once more.
A failure badly bruised, mentally paraplegic, and dead but still breathing; prepared without hesitation to do it again. And again.
A maternal love is unfailing, unwavering. At least that is what it’s supposed to be. And maybe you’ll never see it in me, or find any sense of pride in my silent and suffering efforts, but I will press on in it in hopes that in the end, you will awaken to the knowing of how profound the possibility is of someone, who is so broken, numb, and beat down, could still love someone else and fight for someone else with an unfathomable, immeasurable, unfaltering, unconditional, and powerful will to live again, and also still love someone else with an entirety and unbreakable spirit, while unable to look at her own self in the mirror.
Live fully, my sweet joy. Live powerfully as my favorite chapter. I’ll be here fighting it for us. And always loving you out loud and working through the dead in me silently.
And even when you didn’t think I cared, or don’t think I care, I have loved you and will love you with every fiber and every second of my existing…
I am oppressed by the absence of you. You are roaming around in my mind like an out of control ping-pong ball. You are stomping through my chest, ripping away at my heart. The silence is screaming in the mangled words that are forming on the paper in front of me. I can hear your voice echoing, “bye”, over and over, and the sliding of my vehicle skidding down the driveway.
We are but little blimps on the maps of this world. Given one time to try to float where we can. But selfishly, we waste it. Every one of us. We focus on things that fizzle out instead of miraculous opportunities that may be right in front of our noses.
Now, look at us, alone we sit. A very familiar place indeed. This is why the silence continues. The stubbornness of our enjoyment of loneliness. The inspiration of the sadness within it. I feel restless and incomplete. The incompetence of what people call relationships is a mystery to someone like me. For me, there’s an investment of time built around the knowledge and adventure a person can match with me. I ask nothing of them in a physical or financial sense on purpose. I want it to be an open book, not capable of resentment for miniscule things. No regrets. If it works, then a lifetime of hard-earned happiness has bred itself from a place of pure dedication and partnership. If it does not work, you move on, grateful for the company, new knowledge, and passion fueled by intrigue. You mend your broken heart over time with the same two feet you stood on, on your own. And you remember everything. Because a lesson is truly the most important tribute you can take with you throughout your entire life, even when the season with each person or adventure has passed.
Love is an equivalent to a broad-stroke of freedom from anchors in the water. The waves can break against you even while you smile with the wind in your hair. You weather through each of the rough patches, clinging to a balcony. And when you finally get still again, what remains is what is to move on to the next phase with you.
So, I’ll sit here in meditation. Pain or not. Because it’s not new to me. And when the waves are done breaking against me, and the air around me becomes still again, I will move to the next phase, whatever that may be, with what or who remains by my side. And no matter how difficult that may be or how that may look, I will be grateful for every presence that has crossed my path, and eternally grateful for the lesson that each one taught me. Because each one, uniquely woven, makes up some of the most magical notches on the most beautiful of Orion’s belts in my galaxy. And who could really frown on such a glorious sky?
The Truth and the Lies of the Journey 