THE CLOSET MYSTIC

i still don’t know what the moon told you that dreaded night —

you looked at her face far more than mine,

and you felt as distant as she —

then gone were you with the tide,

never to return,

never to tell me:

what did the moon tell you that night?

and today i visited the grave

where our love went to rest,

not to one day resurrect —

its slumber surely eternal.

but i saw that truth bear fruit

that all death makes way for new life

when i saw flowers sprout 

reaching for sunlight.

the stone had weathered, too,

battered by nights of hurricanes,

engravings lost to time,

memory’s sands

slipping through my fingers.

time heals all wounds,

sure as a great oak grows,

sure as cliffs erode.

every time you open your mouth i only want to hear more

every time you open your heart i only want to dive in deeper 

I guess that we all do have an incurable wound, don’t we–

the ability to love

this sickness that is the only path to health

this misery that is the only path to joy

I guess it is love.

A heart opened to the world is a wound that can never be stitched

it is pain, it is joy.

To love is to hurt —

A work that we must undertake.

bleed, bleed.

never close the gash

mourn every injustice

the moment you stop hurting

when you close the wound

and stop bleeding your love out to the world

is when we send the world into a drought

from which we cannot recover

humanity, from a lush forest

to dry thistle and brush

on which these wildfires of hatred thrive.

it is love alone that feeds the world

one fish feeding thousands.

no, we will never live on bread alone

…

I guess it is love,

that rescues every Icarus

finding the Sun 

in the heart of another

down on Earth.

I guess it is love 

that puts the sword back in the stone,

Excalibur,

choosing surrender.

I guess it is love 

that Zanoni truly sought

giving up immortality 

giving up the panacea

for the actual panacea

the hand of his love.

I guess it is love, isn’t it?

I’ve realized I have nothing to want for. For me to want would be greed. I realized every time I ever wanted, for me to have said “my life would be complete if only I had this,” I spat on all that has been given to me.

I truly have nothing to want for. I will forget this fact, but right now, it is so clear. I will forget, then remember, then forget again. Such is life.

innate at birth, gradually unlearned by what the world tells us we need to be, and then either re-learned by choice and effort, or robbed from others due to one’s own lack of self love.

We either choose to heal or become the reason why someone else gets sick.

who the fuck am i even? i’m just tired. who am i even? do i even like myself? does that even matter? i don’t know who i am. i don’t know what i am. none of this makes sense. i feel my spirit being pulled towards something else. something else. something else. writing, this is a tricky thing. writing. somehow, someway, simply through these words you see here displayed on your screen, i am supposed to communicate to you the happenings of my soul. and funnily enough, sometimes it works, or sometimes, it points to something going on in your own soul. sometimes both. and yet, despite the impulse i have to translate feeling into the verbal and written, i feel as if no matter how much i say, i still have a hand clasped over my mouth. no matter what i do, no matter what i say, no matter how much i drive a point home, something is lost, there is some distance, some gap that i cannot close no matter what. no matter how hard i try, there is this distance. i’ve learned so much during my time here on earth. one of the things i’ve gotten best at is being a performer. i perform no matter what i am doing. adapting, changing, contorting to fit the stencil of the eye before me. is that the gap? is that what it is? is it that i haven’t quite learned how to not be liked? do i distance myself from others unwittingly because of this? do i demonstrate an untruth to those before me to elicit positive reaction? isn’t that the problem of love, though? to demonstrate who you are not in order to receive love isn’t receiving love because that most tightly veiled part of yourself is kept private, that part of yourself that needs it the very most is hidden for none to see. that part of yourself that needs love the most is so afraid of not receiving it that it acts in ways that only push it away more. 

but you know what i learned? i learned the more i dialogued with that part of myself and communicated it — raw, ugly, unrefined, not palatable — the more prepared i became to actually love and be loved. so funny. 

but i guess i am just… done trying. i don’t want to have to try so hard anymore. i’ve been punishing myself. has it been punishment? i don’t even know. i don’t think i’ve been acting as if i like myself. there’s been some deep dissatisfaction. i… want to rest. i want to stop trying. i want to be like water again. i am doing choosing an uphill ascent constantly when i don’t have to. can i just be the river and float downstream? can i just be myself again? i don’t want to have to hide from the world. i want someone i can open my heart to. but isn’t it strange, the grass is always greener. why wait to open your heart to another when you can do it with yourself? 

even now, when i write. there is that fear. that i need to write and make it sound good. because what? if it sounds bad, then what? then what happens? then someone will come across this blog, not resonate with it, think it is bad, and it is left to oblivion. but then what? what happens then? i don’t even think it’s the fear of someone disliking it, maybe it’s the fear of not being significant? maybe it’s the fear of not being remarkable? where on earth does that even come from? what if no one ever sees this blog? who. cares. who the fuck cares. who the fuck cares anymore. i want to like me. and i mean, really like me. like actually like me. and you know what? i can’t tell if growing into someone i can like is a matter of changing myself or changing what standards i have for liking someone or something. maybe it’s both. maybe the part of me that is so reluctant to like things and people and the part of me that is so quick to see flaws inner and outer is the very part of me that i do not like. i don’t know. but that’s the scar tissue, that’s the bitterness and hardness that builds up over time, vitriol that crystallizes over the liver such that you wince and clasp it because there’s something over it that it cannot digest, that you aren’t digesting, and yet you’re only consuming more of it: vitriol, disharmony, bile, bile, bile, bile, at each other and everywhere you look and go. and i don’t know who got sick first: me or the world? 

i don’t know anymore, none of this is relevant. none of this is significant. do you know what it is? do you want to know what is at the heart of all of this? it is the desire to have hope. to be happy. maybe it is that i see so many unhappy souls and hearts out there. maybe i want to cultivate a happy heart, to show that it can be done, maybe if i find happy for me then i can help others do the same. maybe that’s it.

but here’s the thing, right now, this very moment, at the heart of all of this. i forgot to speak on how i feel. why? i guess it’s because i ran into trouble speaking on how i felt too much. i guess it’s because i was told directly or indirectly by someone i was very close to at a time that i was overly dramatic and emotional. and guess what, i was, i absolutely was. i was also told i didn’t work enough and spent too much time dedicated to self-care. and guess what, that was true too. that was very true. but you know what else? when i commit myself to something, i go for it, when i say i’ll do something, i usually do it. so when i said i was going to change, i did, and my life has now changed. here i am living alone. but do you know what i miss? it’s the magic. it’s the magic that permeated nearly every waking moment before. it’s the magic of the sea, the magic of the moon, of the saltwater cleansing my airways, cleansing my spirit, making everything make sense and making everything feel alive. i’ve matured in a way i’m not sure i like. there’s things i do like about how i’ve changed — but you know what it is, perhaps, that i miss most of all? it’s the lack of orderliness. when did everything i did need to be recorded and checked off on a to do list as some achievement? every mile counted, every meditation prescribed. what about being taken by an impulse on a whim? what about the formlessness of the sea? what of that? what of forgetting about work and about school and about what i need to do and clean my home and do my laundry and exercise and watch what i eat and read and meditate and do my homework and do my work and who am i becoming and who am i becoming and i can’t just sit without needing to achieve and i can’t just sit without needing to achieve and holy shit this is never who i was where did this come from and i used to not care and now here i am and now i feel like i am letting loose if i don’t do my dishes immediately and now my version of being a little wild is leaving them for the morning and oh my god i can’t look at that and not clean it and oh my god i didn’t do my assignment three days in advance and left it for the day of and what happened i wanted to read everyday and this and that. where the fuck did this come from who the fuck is this? 

every action calculated every aciton calculated i don’t want to do anything anymore i don’t want to achieve i want to do nothing and be creative and silly and childlike and oh my god is this where the rest of the world is right now too and oh my god can i help and oh my god why don’t we run away from it all and start fresh in the forest and oh my god people who think like that are delusional and oh my god i need to think about my taxes and oh my god that’s unsexy and oh my godmygodmygodmygod can i move away is there another country where they’re happier and oh my god i haven’t traveled much and i’m 23 and oh my god my cats need love and oh my god all i want is love and oh my god why am i looking for a partner to feel fulfilled that’s just a distraction there’s so much living to do so much to see and oh my god maybe i’m happy with what’s simple and oh my god i need a rich and vivid life

Maybe the act of falling in love isn’t even just the act of falling in love with each other

maybe we’ll also both fall back in love with being alive together. 

maybe most things in life that are fun mean being a fool. maybe some of the things in life that are the most meaningful extend beyond the mind. i don’t want to think anymore. i don’t think i ever got closer to the truth by thinking. i don’t think i ever got closer to the truth by thinking. i don’t think i ever got closer to the truth by thinking. 

isn’t it so fascinating how writings like that ^ they chronicle someone’s prison break from themself? the self breaking free from the self? the confines of the ruminating, overthinking, self-imprisoning mind; then another aspect of the self who finally wants to break free, an aspect of the self against another aspect of the self. Prometheus rising up within. an inner uprising against one’s own inner oppressive regime. 

maybe a real revolution begins against oneself

i guess there is that urge within me to just give someone my worship and adoration. it’s an urge that doesn’t even necessarily have an aim. it’s just there, ready to be given. 

and you know damn well they don’t “deserve” it. but maybe that’s part of the healing power of love. who of us really ever truly deserves it? depending on how you look at it, it’s either all of us or none of us. 

but you still want to give it anyway. yeah, i’ll be looking at you with rose-colored glasses. it’ll be silly. it’ll be foolish. but i’ve spent too long thinking too hard. let me be a fool for you. let me love you