Ad Absurdum & Beyond

So recently I’ve been dealing with this teacher that’s kind of tough, not bad but not easy either. And like most cases when a class or teacher is hard, I really hate them or it. But afterwards I’m grateful. Because all the crap, and growing pains and challenges I went through made me that much better. Those really tough times in life tend to be the same. I hate the pains the come with groth and change, but I am grateful for being made that much wiser, and that much stronger.

I want to live a deeper life. Can I do that? I’m a little tired of this ultimatum of feelings. Fly high…or fall flat. And when the latter happens just check out and ponder if maybe the next time, the next time, the high will last long enough to mean something, to get me somewhere. Wouldn’t that be nice?

It’d be niceer to get off the merry go round. To just dive in, and kick my way to the darkest parts of the ocean and for once be able to untie the tether that connects me to the surface. To not look over my shoulder and know I’ll have to surface soon, be called back for air. It’d be nice if I could give up the need to breathe the drug laced air and just keep swimming down and really let my heartbeat.

When you find yourself 

submerged beneath dark waters

kick hard to the surface

with every ounce of power you may have.

Break the surface with audacity

and breathe greedily 

in the air it tries to deny you.

~

Summon your courage

and whisper boldly

“Not today, darkness, not today.

You shall not drown me yet.

You shall not have me today.”

~

We will all be swallowed one day

it is the price we all pay.

but Do Not,

let the darkness steal more

than it was meant

For your days are your birthright

and all you shall ever truly have

do not surrender

your one and only chance.

~

Breathe boldly, breathe deep

and grasp what matters most.

Demand it,

and the waves will carry you

to the shores.

So when your days hae been spent

and the darkness comes to collect

you may stand tall and dauntless

with candor and acknowledgement

that only the daring rare may claim.

I will never fully be able to record what it was like growing up among an ever changing landscape of flames, and reeds, and stones. All had their flaws. The flames flickered and consumed. The reeds bent and broke. The stones cracked and sunk. But all had their merits and virtues as well. Their warmth and light. Their whimsy and strength. Their steadfastness and endurance.

They made me, and broke me, and repeated the process time and time again. They painted my skies and filled the air with webs of stories more complex then can ever be recaptured. No, I will never be able to record with justice what living and growing up was like, but that too I have accepted and released. 

Sometimes I wonder…if the people who so fervently cling to the most grandiose and fantastical notions, simply can’t handle the very simple, mean facts. Or maybe they simply are disappointed that life’s grandest and greatest moments do not blind us with sublimity but simply glow with a warmth we need to carry on through the rest.

We all seem to chase these ideas of lives that so blind us with the bizarre and extraordinary, that we can’t seem to be happy to have the small and simple good things in front of us.

I’m standing in the middle of a crossroads in the dead silence of night. My feet aren’t touching the ground. I’m waiting, though I shouldn’t be.

I can’t help it. I waiting for this scene to end. This fragment of time and life, that should be a nightmare, or at least an ambivalent hallucination. But it isn’t. It’s just another moment.

There’s the dull dinging staccato of a flipped over car, the only alarm to a world turned on it’s side. The driver has simply accepted how bad the situation is, and is resigned to counting the few stars left he can see as he hangs upside down. The passenger in back is trying to ignore how fast she is fading, her memories are all she holds now, hoping the others don’t live forever like this. She’s holding onto what few strands of light are left. The passenger in the passenger seat, has become twisted in the aftermath. She’s screaming, but no one can hear her, no one can see past her strained smile. She’s losing her mind, but she’s losing her voice as well. And the tears she’s been hiding, well they’re more visible now. She’s found herself holding herself up, over broken glass and distorted ground, she can’t seem to find her footing, and her fingers are slipping on her very tenuous grip. Just when I think she’s going to fall, she tightens her grip, only to begin slowly slipping again. 

I see it, but I don’t move. What can I do? It seems a world away. There’s another car to the other side of me. On first glance it seems fine. But look again and the road beneath it seems to hold a sour stench that lingers in the floor of the car. Few notice it, but few bother to look below. There’s a girl in the back, she’s got a ribbon on her eyes, but it’s crumbling. Moths eating away at it’s flimsy material. The more it crumbles, the sadder her smile becomes. A boy sits next to her, determined to not acknowledge the rest of the occupants or even the world. His eyes flash with visions of fantasy. He’s frozen himself, but he no longer cares. Two people sit in front. The man in the drivers seat, has two sides to his face one is cast in shadow, the other smiles but with a sad and lost eye. The woman beside him has one hand clawed into his arm. She too is screaming silently, her face contorted by rage. But few can see past the frightening expressions and see the lines of fatigue or tears of confusion and regret pouring from her eyes. Every now and then when I can see her face, she claws out at me too. But that too is lost on me.

The cars keep moving , speeding by in slow motion, on roads that keep changing before their eyes, though always seem to look the same. 

They can’t help it, they’re just doing what they can, what they know.  And still there I am suspended, waiting for it all to crash, waiting for the rush of things to unfreeze. I have an eerie feeling though; that it won’t. It won’t change. Not really, not ever. The scene may contort in different ways, and the problems will be traded and exchanged, the players may even fade and be exchanged. But there will be no real difference. Except maybe that my feet will hit the ground again, and  I’ll no longer be suspended. I’ll be tuned in again, feel what they feel. Their echoes, their ties to me spinning me about and echoing what they feel in me. But then my feet will leave the ground again, and I’ll just float there, seeing it as a whole picture, just suspended in the natural chaos. It won’t matter, though it should.

I won’t be able to name the moment, though I’ll know it well. And the process shall repeat, over and over. Until my feet become glued for good and I too will  fade away into the paved track of skeletons and chaos that we are all born from and must inescapably return to.

There’s a name for this state of mind. Or their should be. Pity I don’t know it, or at least I can’t put my finger on it. I want to say, pensive or confused, but they don’t have the right fit. Aimless and numb don’t taste right either. It’s a state of mind, a place I often find myself, I should be able to describe it. It’s not disappointment, or even acceptance. Though it has a faintly similar feel. 

I guess we’ll just call it, suspended. 

My head spins around jumping from here to there, while my heart flutters, anxious for a choice. My heart was never hard to please, it was my head that did the tossing and turning, always weighing the options and taking the reign. My heart chose to stay a child and leave the pains and mess of growing up all up to my head…

This is the way my addiction begins,

Not with a bang but with a whimper.

So I had been been pushing this off for awhile, fooling myself into thinking that I could have a tumblr account without actually creating a blog. But, guess not. I was trying to avoid getting another addiction and what not, but I guess I’ll have to get over that. Guess Oscar Wilde was right. The best way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. So hello new temptation, lets see what kind of adventure this will be. Whether this reaches a crescendo with a bang or dissolves into a trail of whispers shall fall on my curious whims. This ought to be interesting.