I could never spell this day's name, ha... Halloween... moving on.
Of course I can't sleep. Sit at work in the cold, fall asleep, even as I am with papers in my hands, while some weird music that I have no idea why I am listening to is playing in just my right ear, why this music, why this kind... I've never liked this kind, of course it reminds me new things. While a loud machine chunks away page by page by page... at a job to keep my mother off the street... I sleep then, not now. I get home to eat dinner, fall asleep, my fork falls from my finger tips hits the floor, my gosh I gotta clean it, nah too tired, wipe it with my hand, my pants, so sleepy, but right now I cannot sleep. I play a game to check on my friends, new friends that I met on--a game, fall asleep, yet again, my tablet drops on my face, good job, good job--what am I doing? I am playing--a game, it's just a game... but there are people on the other end, with hearts and minds and souls and I care, again, I care. Yet, right now I cannot sleep. Funny thing, I played a game, this game, to ignore everything that was falling apart at my finger tips. Everything I wanted to forget, everything I was trying to push away to be numb, to not fall apart myself. My right shoulder has been in pain for a year now, left one now too since July. Here's what I see dying, all those dreams He put on my heart, the dreams that drenched my soul with life, hope, dreams about beauty in the dark corners that everyone forgot to care about, dreams about loving the least of these with the only beauty I was willing to accept I had in these dry aching bones, the least of these including myself, and my mediocrity at what I love the most --creating, the thing that ties me most to the divine... Yet right now, I cannot sleep and I am feeling more than anything, more than I ever asked, and I for once, refuse to run and hide.
I can't play guitar without pain, I have had little to no will to sing, especially after being stepped on about it for so long, yet months ago I was finally comfortable in my own skin, and the structure of my vocal folds that create the voice I have... let's talk about the drawing and painting that I left on the shelf for a dream of teaching (planted almost 10 yrs ago) oh how cowardly fearless I was then... and finally I can only stand to type on this tablet, everything else hurts from this shoulder, to my soul, to my disillusion of self, and the people I committed, to wondering if they were worth the pain, again, this deep pain of always giving but maybe not giving what was needed or wanted so I am like an inflamed appendix, someone, please rip me out... I found myself in the way again.
So I ran to a game. How silly of me. As if there wouldn't be people there too. Glorious people, who lifted my heart to want to speak with my creator again, even if I can no longer define that creator enough to say a name ("God" seems like too confining of a word for something so far beyond what I could ever know, but always need and crave and long for...) there is still love, known defined, understood, yet mysterious and an enigma, for I feel it, somehow give it sometimes, and fail every second I breathe, love is what I fail to give and even more receive. I fear love. I am unworthy of love, though I once believed, God is love, and still do. The question is, is there any of love (what I would call goodness and noble and truthful and life giving and many other things) in me? I was created with love, through love, by love, for love to receive and to give love. Why is it so hard to love?
There was a time, that without knowing I would pour out all life I had in me into my own creations. There I met with love, my creator, most, readily, easily, unashamed. This was always to be our little secret. The most intimate giving of myself to any other being, but it was mine, no one else's. Time passed, I don't know where I am going with this, but somehow it seemed suddenly okay to dream of pouring out that love for everyone who never felt love or needed more love, or forgot love. It all sounds disgustingly silly and childish now, even as I dare to say it out of my mind. Then came the time my shoulder gave way, and my greatest weaknesses are raw and exposed. I am frail and fearful and lose strength quickly and if I push myself too much I fall away at the seams. I hate my weakness so much.
My gosh, did I always dream about being an artist tied down by nothing yet always having the stability of a home? What is home? Do I have a home? Did I ever have a home? The one I knew in the past lays in cinder and ashes from 16 yrs ago, and there is good and bad in that death. There was a theme, to abide in Christ, then he will make a home of me, but I don't see a worthy home when all I see is the pain I leave in my wake. Sure in present time I hear, "you are a blessing in my life" and such talk that communicates that but once they want to cross the bridge away from me all I see left are the scars I placed in their souls. I am too much, too little, too late, too soon, I am just me and I have nothing to balance my toxicity. I want everyone to walk away, yet pray they never do, because I truly long to love. I feel insane, too insane and silence swallows me whole.
I want to scream sometimes in my darkest moments. Leave before I break you, leave before I reaffirm your fears, leave before the weakness in me and the selfishness in me devours all the beauty you have to give, all the beauty you are desperately clinging to just to have enough hope for the next breath. So, in this game, with beautiful people, I met friends. Friends that reminded me of one friend in my "real life" as we all say, who has seen much of my ugliness and still feels I am worth the risk. I used to think this was rare. I have doubted friendship for so long, I always seemed to kill it with myself, who I am and who I am not.
I can't play guitar without pain, I have had little to no will to sing, especially after being stepped on about it for so long, yet months ago I was finally comfortable in my own skin, and the structure of my vocal folds that create the voice I have... let's talk about the drawing and painting that I left on the shelf for a dream of teaching (planted almost 10 yrs ago) oh how cowardly fearless I was then... and finally I can only stand to type on this tablet, everything else hurts from this shoulder, to my soul, to my disillusion of self, and the people I committed, to wondering if they were worth the pain, again, this deep pain of always giving but maybe not giving what was needed or wanted so I am like an inflamed appendix, someone, please rip me out... I found myself in the way again.
So I ran to a game. How silly of me. As if there wouldn't be people there too. Glorious people, who lifted my heart to want to speak with my creator again, even if I can no longer define that creator enough to say a name ("God" seems like too confining of a word for something so far beyond what I could ever know, but always need and crave and long for...) there is still love, known defined, understood, yet mysterious and an enigma, for I feel it, somehow give it sometimes, and fail every second I breathe, love is what I fail to give and even more receive. I fear love. I am unworthy of love, though I once believed, God is love, and still do. The question is, is there any of love (what I would call goodness and noble and truthful and life giving and many other things) in me? I was created with love, through love, by love, for love to receive and to give love. Why is it so hard to love?
There was a time, that without knowing I would pour out all life I had in me into my own creations. There I met with love, my creator, most, readily, easily, unashamed. This was always to be our little secret. The most intimate giving of myself to any other being, but it was mine, no one else's. Time passed, I don't know where I am going with this, but somehow it seemed suddenly okay to dream of pouring out that love for everyone who never felt love or needed more love, or forgot love. It all sounds disgustingly silly and childish now, even as I dare to say it out of my mind. Then came the time my shoulder gave way, and my greatest weaknesses are raw and exposed. I am frail and fearful and lose strength quickly and if I push myself too much I fall away at the seams. I hate my weakness so much.
My gosh, did I always dream about being an artist tied down by nothing yet always having the stability of a home? What is home? Do I have a home? Did I ever have a home? The one I knew in the past lays in cinder and ashes from 16 yrs ago, and there is good and bad in that death. There was a theme, to abide in Christ, then he will make a home of me, but I don't see a worthy home when all I see is the pain I leave in my wake. Sure in present time I hear, "you are a blessing in my life" and such talk that communicates that but once they want to cross the bridge away from me all I see left are the scars I placed in their souls. I am too much, too little, too late, too soon, I am just me and I have nothing to balance my toxicity. I want everyone to walk away, yet pray they never do, because I truly long to love. I feel insane, too insane and silence swallows me whole.
I want to scream sometimes in my darkest moments. Leave before I break you, leave before I reaffirm your fears, leave before the weakness in me and the selfishness in me devours all the beauty you have to give, all the beauty you are desperately clinging to just to have enough hope for the next breath. So, in this game, with beautiful people, I met friends. Friends that reminded me of one friend in my "real life" as we all say, who has seen much of my ugliness and still feels I am worth the risk. I used to think this was rare. I have doubted friendship for so long, I always seemed to kill it with myself, who I am and who I am not.
Tonight, my friends are all in silence and it hurts everything inside me... Some hurting, some.. who knows-- I always seem to want to pursue the one lost sheep, to affirm my love for them and my longing for them, but it seems tainted with me, all of who I am and wish I could be, so I stand where I know how to live best, alone. I am abiding in fear, and keep the silence as well. My pain doesn't seem enough to justify crushing another with my presence if it is unwanted or unneeded. Many tell me over and over... if a person cares they do whatever they can just to be with you... okay, okay but there are the times they can't or won't for well... probably the same reasons I don't when I don't, or can't when I can't and the times I cross the bridge to say hello I feel like the damn-est fool that ever existed. Shouldn't love have trust as well? Should love be proven empirically to be true and real?
Love is far from science, and as much as I enjoy science my depths enjoy the life that love is far, far more, and incredibly more deeply than anything else. So on this dark sleepless night, I am too little to love again, but friends I do pray you are a greater risk taker than I am tonight. If anything you have taught me, love is also a risk, and damn, this little coward can actually be bold and a risk taker. This little coward, would risk her life for you, if I could forget about me long enough, and I want to trust that you risk your heart and soul for me too, even a little tiny bit, because I know you know this darkness deeply, but the times you shine are worth fighting every demon inside me, just to see you, and know more of you.
When I feel my creator far from me, I cease to breathe in reality. My greatest weakness is my doubt when all I have been given is beauty. I never thought I would feel this way about anything besides an invisible god... I hate not trusting, while life gets in the way, while the past tries to haunt us, while the future seems foolish or far too big to dare to dream. Yet, the people who crossed roads with me are so profoundly inspirational, beautiful, mystifying, encouraging, and too good to be true, and on the other end of this encounter I see a girl who used to dream, becoming a woman who fights for life and wholeness and love. Every minute I see who I am I want to run, but you make me feel beautiful, that you do. Each of you make me feel beautiful, and in silence I miss you most.
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