Year: 2023

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Just When…

Just when I thought I couldn’t hurt any more, that my loneliness had reached some kind of divine perfection. All at once suddenly finding parts on my supposed heart that were unbroken.

And all the old defenses swing into play on the stage; “I just wanted to be alone anyway”, “you should have seen what he did to me”. Just like the others, a consolation prize, a friendship token.

I’m writing from way out in the woods. There is a logic to it, a settler’s logic softened by an illusory distance of genocide. I denied your advances. Did you even try to rouse me? Sharp words were never spoken.

And so I bounce undone and we perpetuate these patterns again.
You get hurt while I struggle to find my humanity, my own identity apart from the violence of my existence that is only overcome by my heathenry.

I wanted to be here for you, but I forgot I was me, lost in the lodge is a convenient metaphor, but no one else knew I came in here but you.
What did Leonard Cohen say? Many men are dying where you promised to be.

I’ll die in here forever, that’s of no real concern for me, but you’ve gained my blessing and from inside your mirrors I’ll mutter the mantras, benedictions of iterations of your names, benefactor of nothing, nobody, never-ever; me.

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Alone

It is fascinating to be alone at this level. I’ve been reduced to a handful of souls that know anything about me. I’ve worked at it for decades now and have unearthed new frontiers. The majority of my time is spent in conversation with gods and elementals.

The loneliness at hand is not so much the lack of physical companionship, though that has been extremely minimized, it is the lack of caring eyes.

I believe this level of expertise has been achieved only by being half here in the first place. Existing on situational/transactional relationships, and rarely revealing myself in full.

The violent nature of the dominant culture has always challenged my willingness to be myself around others. To be judged as too effeminate, too delicate, emotional, empathic, non-competitive, uptight.

So very few have ever known me in the first place. Only a few have known me throughout my life. People know me in sections, in geographies, a year here, five there, two years here and so on.

When I left one town I was typically so broken that no one there would talk to me. Booze, drugs and sex. There are hard breaks between lovers and groups of fiends and what I allowed some of them to see.

Now that I have deleted social media I am beginning to see how the surrogate virtual friends pushed me further in to a false sense of community, and made it possible to distance myself accordingly. Now that I’m no more, they are no more and the surrogate bubble has bursted. I am alone even more again.

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The Silent World of Suffering

 

I hurt you, I know I hurt you.
‘Sorry’ has replaced the name of god on these silent lips.
My silent self, initiated by a prophet,
My sacred body, sworn to the laws of the witch,
A dagger drawn to the stubble of my neck.

Every night I betray these oaths to lay in this bed,
like a man, but distant, like a dog in service, not to be petted,
but loyal ever to your hand.
Do I even remember who and what I am?

Maybe you notice, sometimes I look at you,
Sun shinning, the wind catches your hair and ‘I’m sorry’ just out slips.
My remorse escapes out of place and you ask “what for?”
I shrug, but in the silent world, unseen my soul is overrun.

Your ancestors poke, broken oaths burn spirals in my eyes
ghosts with banners bearing symbols of grief march cross my mind,
for all we’ve lost, all that could have been, for everything I’ve done.
Your mother mutters curses in my right ear.
I smile and the sun shines on; “Nothing dear.”

Crystal clear, for me this is the way I make it up to you.
I’m no Christian, but my gods know penance and I gladly pay.
Not just for what I did to you, it’s intertwined, the cost of admission; death.
This whole life a forced landing on a carceral plane.
Very few are native here, though most are born inside insane.

Fugitive goddesses, bound and forgotten to themselves, we.
Sadly, though I’ll try forever more, we can no longer speak to your divinity,
which you’ve redressed into ‘settled for less’, which is me,
clipped-winged, broken, idle and alcoved, kneeling man-dog me.

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Bhodisattva at the gates of Hell

 

When writing for the Lab, I used to pause and invite the reader into the space.  I’d invite them to take a moment to breathe, stretch and establish a mental distinction between what they had been doing and what they were about to read. I would issue a similar gesture with this piece.

The Query
Recently, I am more frequently noting the subtle lines between points of interest across long expanses of time. I wonder about the minds who are able to pinpoint new worlds by tracking shadows of invisible light. What do they dream in at night, numbers or spectrums of light? And how is it that I am so perplexed by the complexity that I am afraid to move an inch while others catch only a glimpse and trounce ahead? Are there also bhodisattvas stationed at whatever the place that nirvana is not? What would that place be called other than here? And who do you have to piss off to get this gig? These angeldemons positioned throughout the demilitarized zone between realms.  The choir of psychopomps speak.  

The Vision: Bhodisattva at the gates of Hell
Here we are, seated on the edge of material hell, being called by all form of Maya toward the most illustrious illusion of death. It’s a crime scene we’ve been born into, original sin. Instead of stepping into the unaware accomplice shtick again; “who me?” We’re attempting to do something different this time around. Sit down. No more wishes, three points to consider before moving on.

First , you know balls to bones that it is the environment we’ve manifest into that influences how we perceive each other in the present moment; remember? We’ve watched our children struggle and fight as they are shaped into form by the elements gathered as the host for their soul on this plane. The NeverEverLand battles that render flesh dark or light, the subtle atoms revolving to interweave with blood and spirit into systems that breath, move and make demands; some that work here and those that will not. Your hair alone; consider your hair. How it breeches the boundary between flesh and external phenomenon.

Second, bones to balls you know the universe is queer as hell and doesn’t give a damn about identity, gender or boundaries, or at least not in that way. In nature one field runs into the next. The archetypal punk sharpied ‘whiskey + LSD’ and ‘a hole is a hole’ on the bathroom stall wall. The settler’s cream; “I’ll f^ck anything that moves, no matter if it breathes”. New worlds, manifest destiny, all colonies long for both attraction and autonomy. But you can’t take the soul out the human without giving up the ghost these days, and after the first few cut down by accident you get used to the taste. The guru admonishes his students knowing full well there is a demigod among them, she teaches them all as goddesses, nonetheless.

Finally, look around you and know all the world is soul soup. Everything that you experience is made of the same stuff you are. All mater is soul matter and has the same innate desire/drive for attention, to be observed, to be seen. And oh the gymnastics of that single cell to sever from the whole. The thrashing to be seen as apart from what you are. This unhinged and inherent desire to be seen separates one from all and draws circles ’round this and that; between I and we. This desire to be observed pushes the agenda of autonomy. See me; unveil me! We all long to be together alone and free in captivity. You know there is a hand on your shoulder as you read this, just as there is a babe suckling at your teat. All these things and more that tug at you from the darkness are real and the cage that blocks them from your mind is our defeat.

Caution and Call
Before you venture onward, fixated on a point in the distance or some shimmering light that dances across her brow, consider this part of our dream; maybe one of the things that brings me to his point, this place out beyond concern for what others think, or the right thing to do, there is you in me and me in you. Beyond and between the layers upon layers of injustice, see the souls. There is either nothing, in which case, desist, or there is a massive union of souls. What do these souls require and demand, each an every, a say, a voice. If we be a universe of divine beings then let us act accordingly. We dole out these death sentences based on ill gained impressions that are more due to tricks of light than what’s right.

And at the very bottom here, so as to not twist up his name too much with this vision; this is what we consider when we posit the dream of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Out beyond these paltry material illusions of flesh and blood, to strive to see and inhabit this realm in its entirety. I see the Reverend Doctor and others of his ilk, Bhodisattvas at the gates of hell, asking me to sit a spell. To reconsider how we strive to cut through Maya, these ill-begotten illusions that color denotes character, that magic is dead, that we dream alone, that this is the way it has to be. 

Notes

  • We jump back and forth between a singular and collective voice here. I attempted to edit it to a unified singular expression and it didn’t work.
  • This is an attempt to articulate a recurring vision of non-heirarchical leadership and requests a level of openness and non-judgement, a suspension of disbelief as they say, to be observed as intended.
  • While not the focus, this was written on MLK Day 2023, hence the closing thoughts on the Reverend Doctor. 
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On the passage of time and your absence

 

There isn’t a morning where I don’t wake and think of you, what you are doing, if you are even still alive. It’s a little ritual I do as I remember my place in this space upon waking, like making coffee. I’ve had to learn to live with this. I assume it is the same for you. Grief resembles death, a half-death; life in grief.

My father passed a few years back, is it already 5 years? I hadn’t seen him in 20. I received a letter threatening my children years before he died. I assumed it was from him as to bore all his markings. I thought maybe you’d get over yourself and send, not condolences, but some recognition that the man who tortured us and set all this in motion was dead.

I expected to hear from you years ago when tragedy hit. But after all we’ve been through, even a pandemic, and silence still; yeah. I’ve allowed myself, not to think that you’re dead, but that somehow you’re no longer here or there, maybe half and half? In-between? How many birthdays have you missed and how does your heart carry that weight?

I’m not that strong. We recognize your birthday every year, even though it hurts.  Even though it would be much easier to tell the kids you’re all the way dead, I can’t lie. They know you live only a half an hour away. I explain you’ve been twisted up, lost your way, but that it is there you want to stay, in another world, overlaid, untouchable.

Last night, our middle kid (you wouldn’t know his name, though it is highly regarded in some circles of your faith), he was explaining to me how much it hurt him every time he heard other kids talk about their grandparents. Really, that is the loss that gets me more than anything, that they won’t know their grandmother’s embrace.

What a loss of love and all over the fact that I will not bend a knee before a faith that is not for me or mine. Respectfully, with my birth, your church and our family’s blood have parted ways. You could have ushered us forward in love, but you refused to grant blessings or clear passage. You wouldn’t give, so we took. We had to slip away in the night, to find our own way.

And we have, half-dead, nonetheless passed our days. I hope your god embraces you for your blind dedication to his law, above your maternal instincts, above your humanity. Will your reward justify my and our children’s loss and tears? Its utterly sickening that these are my thoughts on the daily, as the coffee drips, as I peel off another round of dried tears.