this was raw love

Dear,

I’m writing this because I know if I attempt to just say it I will fail at getting across what I want to say and what you need to hear.  Partly because I am prone to becoming a wall of resilience and a guardian of my utmost feelings and not saying the truth as I feel. But mostly because I need to read it all to you and remove any option of backing out. 

Yesterday was tough. After barely hearing from you after splashy, I got a message.  “What car does Dear drive?”  Now, know that I constantly worry about you and driving intoxicated, and every accident I hear of I pray that you are not involved. I described your car to her and finished off by saying please tell me it’s not an accident. This is at 1pm. She said that there is car parked here that’s pretty banged up, and the pharmacists say it belongs to a young gentleman that is always pissed at the pub across the road. My heart stopped. She then said it was a silver Honda. I breathed again.  About 3 hours later I get a call – she had her stern voice on, and she told me that they had got you. I was in complete pieces. I wanted to write you off after splashy. After what happened at splashy – which I will get into later. But at that very moment I hated the universe for being so unfair. It’s like I have no break and everything is connected to amount to tragedy. Anyway… at that moment my hate surfaced, my defense surfaced. My family is now going out of their way to help you. My family. The very family I tell nothing about you to because I think they’d disapprove.  But there they were, rescuing you. It’s a part of me I did not want to give to you – it’s a part of me that I didn’t want to get tarnished by your behavior. As much as I want to help you, I want to protect them from you more.  They are mine and I don’t want them to worry.  I am a lot like my mom, and I know she probably didn’t sleep last night. She cares too.  Because you probably don’t realize, or remember, let me tell you of the moment.  My mom was parked, waiting. She was parked a good way down from the pub.  She saw a man walking, more like swaying in and out of the road. After a few near hits by cars, you walked towards her. She realized it was you… and let you walk past her car. And then thought, if this was her daughter… what would she want someone else to do? And so you ended up in my moms car. My mom. My person. She felt the need to rescue you – even though she knew how you destructively made me unhuman a good year ago.  I called you – I tried my best to shout and scream the hate out to you. I wanted you to get out of that car and get out of my family – I tried to do it because I don’t want them to suffer. This is what caring for others looks and hears like. They took you back to our house.  Before I could call my mom and tell her to phone your mother she called me and said she’d done just that. I breathed.  I wanted your mom to see you in that state.  I want the world to see you in that state. I want them to see, not to accept but rather to jump aboard on this train that I’m on, god knows I’m exhausted being the only passenger on this continuous derailing.  

Dear It’s time.  

People around you are hurting.  You don’t want to hurt people. In fact you probably don’t want those people there at all.  But they are.  And they always will be.  Your mom.  Her heart bleeds. She has said those words to me. Family wishes he could do more.  And he has said he will do whatever it takes should you ask and let him help. Friends has wished you would grow up too, and I’ll get back to that.  But more relevantly, my heart bleeds too.  Although most times I feel like you do not want or love me.  Know that even if you don’t at times – I am first and foremost your friend and I don’t actually care whether you want or love me – if you push me away, I will push back.  That’s what friends do.  I don’t need your love to care; I don’t need your wanting me to love you.  It’s unconditional.  But I cannot watch you hate life.  I cannot watch you do this to yourself.  I cannot watch and do nothing. You need help.  This is a heavy statement. One that you are ignoring in any way you possibly can, it takes a lot to admit. It takes more than you are maybe willing to give at this moment.  But let’s get real – I’ve known you for longer than 2 years now – how long do you want to pretend you don’t need it?  They say only YOU can fix you.  But they also say that some people are incapable of fixing themselves.  You deny help. You refuse to accept it. You seem to run away from it.  

Everyone has issues Dear. Stop hiding behind yours.  Stop doing things and then brushing them off because of your issues.  Your mask only hides your own face when you look in the mirror – but those closest to you see no mask.  They see you.  We see the pain, the anguish and the self-destruction.  The most frustrating thing of all of this is that you KNOW this, you actually know what you do and WHY you do it – but you refuse to fix it.  Because you don’t know how. And that, that is okay. You know you’re battling but you would rather keep battling – hoping that you’ll get a break – that something will switch and miraculously you won't have to battle. What you’re refusing to accept is that THIS is a battle that you actually need to fight and not ride out. The soldier who goes without fear, without an option to retreat, is the soldier who gets through the enemy, The braveheart of life.  You keep retreating.  You keep repeating. And you’re stuck. And being stuck for so long, is also okay. It has been okay for a long time. But it’s time Dear – put your war paint on and fight. 

Fight for yourself, for your mother, and for your life. And it is a life of greatness. You know this.  It’s a weight you’ve created on your shoulders and it is this that scares you… The fact that everyone around you, closest to you, sees such greatness in you, but you… I feel like this has become your burden.  The pressure you feel.  You’ve got a dark disbelief in yourself that surfaces and shuns that greatness. This darkness is not you Dear, but you continue to use it against yourself and others' view of you.  You don’t live in the light – not presently. You want to let them down and remove the pressure and responsibility. And you don’t know how to not let them down anyway else but the way that you’ve been acting, you want to remove this pressure in the easiest way, you’re constantly looking for ways out, by numbing the realness. Be it drinking, be it weed, be it selfishness. And that, is also okay.  It’s easy to show lack of greatness by upholding your stigmatized perception shown to the world… “Who is Dear?  What do you know about Dear?”... Questions asked to anyone.  “He boozes too much but he is good fun” is the answer.  I call bullshit on this. You only booze because you are breaking. That fun they talk of… sure, it’s true – you are fun, but you are also serious. But no one seems to take you seriously.  And this, this is what is breaking you, inside.  It’s only because you let it.

Why did you act the way you did?  I ask myself this question all the time.  I know the answer.  It’s got nothing to do with me.  Yet at times I doubt myself. Your breaking becomes an inner demon in me – why won’t he fight for me?  Why won’t he rescue me?  Why won’t he show he loves me? Does he?  We both know the answers to these questions.   But they float in and out of my mind. The things you have done to me over the last 2 years – absolutely unacceptable. I could list all the things, but you subliminally know them. Know that I refuse to be treated like that anymore by anyone, let alone you.  Know that I know why you did it, and I absolutely refuse to see you do it for those reasons. There are no more excuses Dear.  No more excuses that I don’t see straight through. I know you.  I could say you are losing me, well losing parts of me – but that might make you care less about yourself. You will never lose me.  You know this.  But please, stop abusing this.  And stop abusing yourself by the bodies you surround yourself with.  You’re fucking clever enough to know you somewhat become who you surround yourself with. Get out. Get away from those masked people.  They’re not happy – they’re escaping too. Stop escaping with them.  Instead, tell Friend – no pub, bring your family and let’s go to the beach. Instead, tell Friend, take me fishing.  You know how to do this. You just don’t want to. Stop escaping and get active.  

It’s time to stop this breaking. Not only are you heading to breaking those closest to you.  You are slowly but surely breaking your mind, heart and your body – breaking yourself physically or more seriously you may cause irreversible damage to another person, an innocent victim and their family -  I’m talking about a car crash amongst other things. You’re also damaging yourself  – I’m telling you now you WILL suffer health issues later in life – But you are breaking yourself as a man. 

Do you want to be man?  But don’t know how sometimes. That too, is okay. 

The man I fell in love with is still you. The man who got into my mom's car after getting hooted at and nearly run over.  The man who sees the light and the help and takes it and lives it.  The man, as my mom said to you yesterday, who brought oysters to my house and met my family.  If you answer that question, do you want to be a man, with a yes, then fight and refuse to give up.

I admit, I didn’t think I was capable of helping you with this battle – but I know that I am. Otherwise I would not be here.  My war paint is my friendship and my love on that level.  Your mom is going to talk to you too.  All I ask, is that you listen.  You have an open mind, and an open heart.  Hear us this way.  Hear your inner voice and listen to it with your everything.  

If your inner voice happens to be screaming right now – if you’re hating me for my words – I’m going to keep pushing.  Because the truth hurts and even though you’re surviving at 30 – you are not living. And I will fight against this.  There is no path; there is no miraculous switch.  What if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things? One at a time.  Just let your pile of good things grow.  It’s not a quick fix – there are no quick fixes, don’t get blinded by quick fixes. I will hold your hand because I want to, not because I need to, or because you need it.  It’s not a pressure or burden, but rather a presence. My hand will always be here, within reach.  And you can reach for it when you want to.  It’s unconditional.  It’s time Dear, don’t brush where you are right now off and blame it on issues.  Be the man you are, care and take responsibility and replace your mask with warpaint.

There's more beauty in the truth even if it is a dreadful beauty

I realize you don't want me. You want someone different to me. You find it in other people but it's only surface level that you see. And the curiosity of seeing if what you are looking at and looking for is rather in them than me, is what keeps you from considerably loving me. Don't drag me along if you think I may be wrong for you or if I don't have what you want. It's that simple. Be bold and brutal enough to let me go. 

               

Afire Dreams

Bloodstream

How did you get so faded.

When I was a child what did I want to become? An aeronautical engineer at NASA, or an astronaut

When I was a teenager what did I want to become? A UN Ambassador, or a peace-core worker

When I am now what do I want to become? A writer, or a kind, content and giving human

My dreams are big. They always have been

It's alright to say that I've become jaded, entangled in the reality of getting a job and not fulfillment, estranged from my child, teenager and true self.  

What I am realising is that unless you surround yourself with self-awareness, self-love, self-ambition and self-journeys - you will constantly feel like your dreams don't matter. Like everyone around you doesn't support, uplift or believe.  And you will slowly neglect your dreams and live theirs instead.

Note to self: you will get the support you want and need when you demand it.  When you give the others no reason to doubt, no reason to criticize and no reason to dissipate your dreams.  You do this by actionably making your dreams come true, there is no disbelief in seeing, hearing, doing and experiencing. 

While I have sadly realised that working for NASA on a scientific orientated level has about as much chance of happening as me correctly guessing the distance between myself and the moon.  I can however effectuate my other dreams.

Goals, initiative and perseverance are the key.

Natural state: Joy

"Compassion and tolerance are not signs of weakness, but a sign of strength." - Dalai Lama


As of this moment and on, I forgive, I empathize, and I do not resent, I do not hate and I do not think of anything as bad or hurtful but rather a lesson that propels me to a better understanding of myself and my power of thought and will.
I will always give and never take.
I will always support and never attach.
I will always believe and never depend.
It is my mind that creates this world.
Whatever the present moment contains, I will accept it as if I had chosen it.

pet the elephant in the room

I want to disappear. I want to erase my memories and recluse myself to a new.  The blisters and roasties on my feet are useless metaphors for my journey. Both hurt and wounded my feet cannot steer my direction to salvation, they need to be bare to heal. They need to be planted and still. They need to bleed. I can't move anyway. There are wounds I cannot pierce or place, I cannot face and I cannot bleed. They're crusting up and with incomplete thought and distrust.
will i ever be okay?
will i ever be wanted?
loved
seen
felt
by someone,
else
cover them up with soft slippers, with incomplete smiles and wasted tears in the back of my mind. walk it off, walk it behind. i am alone. 
me and my slippers and my sugar coated words and unbelieving eyes.

_______________

She sits in the cold weather again, sheltered by rafters and saved by herself.  
"we will never be the change to the weather and the sea and you knew that" 
it is all you know. 
color your world in black, not mine. 
"oh I loved you with the good and the careless of me, but it all goes back"
She sits typing in the dark, she's not feeling well but it's not her health it's her heart and it's barely beating.
"last year to learn, you were the boat that bridged in the tale of Conrad" - Ben Howard, Conrad

The Tale - Joseph Conrad:
from plot summary: The commander is suspicious because the other ship did not make itself known, and had the power to sail away. The other ship’s captain (who appears to have been drinking) claims that he does not know where he is. The commander increasingly feels he is being confronted by a huge lie, and yet he has no proof of anything amiss. The captain pleads that he is only engaged on the journey because he owns the ship and needs the money.
The English commander orders the Northman to take his ship out of the cove, and gives him false directions which take him onto rocks, where the ship sinks, with the loss of all on board. The commander – who has been talking about himself – does not know if he has condemned innocent or guilty men to death


If left abandoned, love turns to hate. It turns to effort and trying but not surviving. Words are loud but actions are louder and cut deeper than the empty depths of any word spoken or unspoken. Her feet were amidst the straw, the mud and the piss but her back broke, her skin darkened and her aroma was tarnished. The music was unheard, the cold unfeeling, and her drink put down. She wiped her tears, caught her breath and walked away. He asked her to smile and forget them but she could only pretend and she was so overwhelmingly done with pretending. He bought her a Sedgewick brandy - it tasted like horse-feed to her. A taste that the dead horse would have appreciated, should he have been able to swallow it. She felt dead so she drank it for the animal. She said goodbye to her distraction and with sore feet she walked towards the destruction. Without much conviction she grabbed her friend and removed them both from the devilish bar. It all became a blur. Her eyes did not focus on what she was looking for so she closed them and danced her feet from raw to numbness. At the end of the blurred night she crept into her bed, the utmost edge of it and cried herself to sleep. 

_______________


I want to say I have given up again. I want to say that I know I really should. But I wont, not after I have promised to your family and to myself.  I don't want to be the English Commander in The Tale that doesn't know if he condemns innocent or guilty. That guilt would kill me faster than any of your actions... or lack of actions. I won't give you false direction or true direction that lead you to rocks or to me.  I will however retreat slowly and see if there is any initiative, any reason to stay, to carry on. But your world is black, not mine, and I, unlike you with your self hate, love myself enough to save myself.  Enough to cry myself to sleep, enough to feel and to take responsibility. I love myself enough to sincerely hold my friends hand and put down a tent while you smoke a bong with strangers. I love myself enough to bring you home to your unconditionally loving mother, and enough to go home and let you be. 


I don't pity you, although the fact that I just wrote those words may mean that I do in some way. However at this moment the only thing I pity is my likeness to that dead horse on the side of the road. After not only been hit down, it had been beheaded.  Battered beyond recognition, used up and left for others to feed off it, broken down piece by piece. I feel like I am that horse and you are the road, the car, the panga, the heartlessness of it all. 

will i ever be okay?
will i ever be wanted?
loved
seen
felt
by someone,
will I ever be saved before it's too late?


______


Should you ever want direction, 


It is within you.  It is always your choice. 

 

"He was born in fury and he lived in lightning.  Tom came headlong into life.  He was a giant in joy and enthusiasms.  He didn't discover the world and its people, he created them... He lived in a world shining and fresh and as uninspected as Eden on the sixth day.  His mind plunged like a colt in a happy pasture, and when later the world put up fences he plunged against the wire, and when the final stockade surrounded him, he plunged right through it and out.  And he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow, so that when his dog died the world ended."
"It might be that his dreams and his longing, and his outlets for that matter, made him feel unworthy, drove him sometimes whining into the hills.  Tom was a nice mixture of savagery and gentleness."
"They condemn themselves before they are charged, and this makes them defensive always."
"He daydreamed out his life, and his mother loved him more than the others because she thought he was helpless. Actually he was the least helpless, because he got exactly what he wanted with minimum effort. Joe was the darling of the family."
"His father reversed himself.  "I was testing you" - "You're a man and a soldier, my boy."
"Adam thought how a man doing an ugly or a brutal thing has hurt himself and must punish someone for the hurt."
"A man afraid is a dangerous animal."
"He had learned so much about woman that he did not trust one for a second.  And since he deeply loved Catherine and love requires trust, he was torn to quivering fragments by his emotion."
"What must I fight for and what must I fight against?"
"The individual mind and spirit of a man."
"And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world... And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.  And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual."
"Maybe we have in us a secret pond where evil and ugly things germinate and grow strong."
"Well, a man's mind can't stay in time the way his body does."
"But a man can't entirely rest when he knows it could be richer."
"There was a wall against learning.  A man wanted children to read, to figure, and that was enough.  More might make them dissatisfied and flighty."
"You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception.  You see what is, where most people see what they expect."
"But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world."
"I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice.  On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other - cold, lonely greatness.  There you make a choice.  I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other?"
"A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be."
"Everyone gets well if he waits around."
"If it troubles us it must be that we find the trouble in ourselves."
"My punishment is greater than I can bear.  Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me."
"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden."
"And oh, Lord! I had forgotten how dreadful it is - no single tone of encouragement."
"No story has power, nor will it last, unless we feel in ourselves that it is true and true of us."
"If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen...  a great and lasting story is about everyone or it will not last.  The strange and foreign is not interesting - only the deeply personal and familiar."
"The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears."
"Couldn't some pains and insanities be rooted out if the causes were known?"
"I'm glad you came" he said. "There's a weight off me."
"That kind of energy is gone out of me" - "don't think it will ever die... Don't expect it.  Are you better than other men? I tell you it won't ever die until you do."
"Only Tom had never got started.  Samuel told Adam Trask that Tom was arguing with greatness.  And the father watched his son and could feel the drive and the fear, the advance and the retreat, because he could feel it in himself."
"But you could feel Tom when you came near to him - you could feel strength and warmth and iron integrity.  And under all of this was a shrinking - a shy shrinking.  He could be as gay as father, and suddenly in the middle it would be cut the way you would cut a violin string, and you could watch Tom go whirling into darkness."
"Sometimes Tom took me fishing."
"Tom loved all of them passionately, but he felt heavy and earth-bound.  He climbed ecstatic mountains and floundered in the rocky darkness between the peaks.  He had spurts of bravery but they were bracketed in batterns of cowardice."
"Tom was quavering over greatness, trying to decide whether he could take the cold responsibility. Samuel knew his son's quality and felt the potential of violence, and it frightened him."
"Violence and shyness - Tom's loins needed women and at the same time he did not think himself worthy of a woman."
"It is probable that his father stood between Tom and the sun."
"And then Dessie fell in love... I do not know any details of the love affair- ...All I know is that it was a hopeless thing, gray and terrible."
"After a year of of it the joy was all drained out of Dessie and the laughter ceased."
"He might get old as midday maybe, but sweet God! the evening cannot come, and the night -? sweet God, no!"
"He told me how a man, a real man, had no right to let sorrow destroy him."  
"We know from the inside of ourselves."
"Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids."
"And the one crack in his wall caused the whole structure to crash."
"Samuel would run wild - she would have to watch him.  She never lost her feeling that he was young and helpless.  It was a good thing that she did not know what went on in his mind, and, through his mind, what happened to his body."
"It's funny - a kind of excitement is coming over me."... "That's good", said Samuel.  "Maybe that's the best of all good things that can happen to a human."
"It was a promise that Cain would conquer sin."
"Thou mayest'. Thou mayest rule over sin."
"Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It may be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open."
"Thou mayest'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth... he has still the great choice.  He can choose his course and fight it through and win."
"The glory of the choice! That makes a man."
"But I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul...  It is always attacked and never destroyed - because Thou mayest'."
"Show me the man who isn't interested in discussing himself."
"Thou mayest' rule over sin... I do not believe all men are destroyed.  I can name you a dozen who were not, and they are the ones the world lives by.  It is true of the spirit as it is true of battles - only the winners are remembered."
"And I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart.  I guess a loving woman is indestructible."
"There is more beauty in the truth even if it is a dreadful beauty."
"Dessie was not beautiful.  Perhaps she wasn't even pretty, but she had the glow that makes men follow a woman in the hope of reflecting a little of it."
"Tom's cowardice was as huge as his courage, as it must be in great men.  His violence balanced his tenderness, and himself was a pitted battlefield of his own forces."
"A dragon killer, he was, a rescuer of damsels, and his small sins seemed so great to him that he felt unfit and unseemly.  She wished her father were here.  Her father had felt greatness in Tom.  Perhaps he would know how to release it out of its darkness and let if fly free."
"He must have been eaten with doubt and hungry for reassurance."
"In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved.  Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love."
"I trust you, son" said Adam."
"Adam's recognition brought a ferment of happiness to Cal.  He walked on the balls of his feet.  He smiled more often than he frowned, and the secret darkness was seldom on him."
"Timshel... I said that word carried a man's greatness if he wanted to take advantage of it"... "It gave him the right to be a man, separate from every other man"... "That's lonely"..."All great and precious things are lonely."
"Timshel - thou mayest'"
"Aron, who had not known he had a home, was nauseatingly home-sick."
"He could admit the mistake but as yet he could not reverse himself."
"To Cal the day was endless.  He wanted to leave the house and couldn't."
"Did you ever think of yourself as a snot-nose-kid - mean sometimes, incredibly generous sometimes? Dirty in your habits, and curiously pure in your mind?"
"Lately I never felt good enough.  I always wanted to explain to him that I was not good."
"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."
"Are you ever afraid?"... "Sure", she said. "I was afraid of you after you said I wet my pants.".... "That was mean," he said. "I wonder why I did it," and suddenly he was silent."
"Timshel!"

East of Eden - John Steinbach