THE CLOSET MYSTIC

One can spend a lifetime meditating on the difference between desire and need.

The distinction between these two is the distinction between the spirit and the body — the true and the false. To walk the path of need is to walk towards lasting, deep happiness — to walk the path of desire is to walk the path towards ugliness, a lack of fulfillment, and pain.

Those consumed by desire are like those who experience food cravings because they are lacking in a critical nutrient. The body never stops hungering, because it is deficient in vitamin X, Y, or Z, so one shovels anything and everything into their mouth to satiate the feeling of emptiness; however, until one finds the real need causing the ache, no amount of cheap substitute will suffice.

We must remember this with our spirits.

How many of us use sex as a cheap substitute for a lack of real warmth or love in our lives?

How many of us use drugs to satisfy our need to transcend, leaving us paralyzed by gravity ever more when we “come down”?

How many of us use any number of vices to escape the real point, dancing around the perimeter of the issue, too scared to face its center?

My pursuit of Spirit is my pursuit of everlasting joy; to discover real need, to find the water of life that I may never thirst, and to let go of desire — but also to have compassion for that desire, not as a product of evil to be hated, but as a product of unfulfilled need, like a child never held by Mother.

I only wish to grant that boy what he never had

What greater revelry,

Than inner revelation?

Here comes my ecstasy’s,

Final exclamation:

Your love is my rebirth,

My spirit’s reclamation.

You graciously dealt

that sacred breath of life,

That made my inner flame

Spark and reignite

I’d walk love’s tightrope

Any time, any day

I know I’ll stay upright,

if on you I fix my gaze

From the windows of your soul,

I’ll never go astray

We haven’t any need,

for all of this space

Meet me in the middle,

Grow warm in my embrace

You are the sweetest fruit

That I will ever taste

With you time does move

At a contrary pace

To my beating heart

That runs

Love’s race.

I ignored the ache of my soul for far too long

Is it too late?

My heart desired freedom

Indescribable longings and callings

Never heard

Never answered

Am I wrong for learning to love my prison cell?

Should I have continued banging my head against the bars?

This Stockholm Syndrome is not my fault

Too many days

Looking at the green mountains

Through classroom windows.

Too many days

Looking at the wild ocean

From a household like solid ice.

What was my battle with derealization

But the reality of my heart not made manifest?

What was my battle with depersonalization

But the inability to express my true self?

I joined the funeral march

For this is the way.

“This is necessary,”

I learned to tell myself

As I put on my own chains

“This is necessary,”
I learned to tell myself

As I silenced my voice, lest I let myself be a hated pariah

“This is necessary,”
I learned to tell myself

As I quieted the wild longing to transcend, to transcend anything, to leave the mundane, for my spirit ached and screamed and clawed and dreamed

But “this is necessary” I’d still tell myself,

And I still tell myself to this day,

That this is all necessary

The pressure will be too much to bear one day

But that day is not today.

This is necessary.

And he manufactured problems

Because he never had any of his own.

And he casted blame, seeing fault in the other

Because he had no awareness of his own.

And he had no forgiveness left to offer his neighbor

For he had used it all up on himself

He stumbled lost, confused, and endlessly angry

Through a hall of mirrors

Every turn he found something wrong

Not realizing he was looking at himself 

His dissatisfaction with his own life

Couldn’t have been his own fault.

It was the fault of those around 

for letting him down.

But he hadn’t the slightest clue

That he was sitting on the ground

Willfully.

Such is the great, cruel joke of life

And he cackled dryly 

When the irony became clear to him.

For he delivered his own punchline

it was he who played the joke on himself.

What else is one to do but laugh

When complaining about the blindfold

Placed over their eyes

When at long last

It’s revealed it was their own hand?

This is no longer art,

I need help.

This is no longer art,

I am hurting.

This is no longer art, I am bleeding.

I need the love I never got,

I need the hand I never held.

I need help.

I need a lot of things,

But most importantly,

I may need to die.

I may need to die because I never lived.

This isn’t art, this isn’t a poem. I am going to die. 

If you see this, reach out, I need it — 

My heart needs two to continue beating.

I fear the time I have is limited,

Dust in the wind,

Sparse, and fleeting.

I’m ready to give myself away

To present my neck

To let the vampires begin their feeding

To sustain themselves on my mortal bleeding

Anyone but me should have this lifeblood

Maybe they can put it to good use —

But I cannot.

I was born to die young

For the weight 

of my mental state

Cannot be sustained 

Now I am youthful, vital

The Herculean task can be managed

But as my posture wilts

I fear so too will my will

I lived a life of pretending

No, I never lived. 

All I know is blackness

Black in my veins

Tar in my heart

Every smile feigned

All laughter pained

And you

You

What are you?

I only know you by feeling

For I am blind

I am deaf

I cannot register you 

with any other sense

Than that of my heart

And there I know you.

Nothing else matters

Other than that one sense

And I am sorry

That I sought to know you

In any other way.

Because in doing so

I forgot you

I forgot me

I forgot goodness

I forgot daytime

I forgot fresh air

I forgot the hummingbirds

I forgot butterflies dancing on the wind

I forgot

But now I remember

Now I remember.

This is no longer art

It’s time to enact

Remedial measures

Of my proclivities

For meaningless pleasures

Rooted in emptiness

Vacuous spaces

Unclothed bodies

Without any faces

Blinded by instinct

Carnal and tasteless

Ruled by desire

Most plain and basic

Sexual vice

a bottomless pit

To be satisfied

First look within

Warmth that lasts

comes from the heart

If you see that

Then healing will start

Sex and love

Are not synonymous

Even bare bodies

Can still be anonymous

Real intimacy

Has no substitution

I’ll leave you with that,

My poem’s conclusion.

From reality,

I took a sabbatical,

Mind ventured to planes

so distant, unfathomable —

In my hand 

Fell the forbidden apple —

Revealing to me secrets,

with which I couldn’t grapple —

Relishing truth’s sweetness,

I ignore the seeds in the middle —

Invigorated and sleepless,

on a turning wheel of riddles — 

And only one being,

Did give me my wake up call — 

To pull me off the ride,

And at last stand firm and tall — 

You’ve shown me the work

From which I did run — 

Now I’ve no choice,

Thanks to you — yes, you are the one —

For I am unsatisfied

With the way in which I live

I want to do nothing more

That you must again and again forgive

The light of your heart

Has revealed to me a hidden path

On it I willingly embark 

Hoping to be your right hand

I hope I have shown you

My willingness to action

And you are my fuel

Yes, my heart, and my passion.

From reality,

I took a sabbatical,

Mind ventured to planes

so distant, unfathomable —

In my hand 

Fell the forbidden apple —

Revealing to me secrets,

with which I couldn’t grapple —

Relishing truth’s sweetness,

I ignore the seeds in the middle —

Invigorated and sleepless,

on a turning wheel of riddles — 

And only one being,

Did give me my wake up call — 

To pull me off the ride,

And at last stand firm and tall — 

You’ve shown me the work

From which I did run — 

Now I’ve no choice,

Thanks to you — yes, you, perhaps the One —

For I am unsatisfied

With the way in which I live

I want to do nothing more

That you must again and again forgive

The light of your heart

Has revealed to me a hidden path

On it I willingly embark 

Hoping to be your right hand

I hope I have shown you

My willingness to action

And you are my fuel

Yes, my heart, and my passion.

how pompous it is of us to wear shoes

What better symbol is there for human arrogance?

Make yourself like the ground. Let there be no dividing barrier between you and the dirt, for we are the dirt, that which is our beginning, our middle, and our end.

the soil of the Mother is our birth, our sustenance, and our final resting place. Refuse this connection as long as you would like.

Never trust a mystic who wears shoes.

The umbilical cord is located in the feet. Sustain your connection with the Mother. Birth is an illusion, as we will always be entirely dependent on the great woman who holds us all in a mutual womb. Separation is an illusion; putting our feet in the dirt shatters the illusion and only reveals truth.

Know that there is a reason why Venus is synonymous with Lucifer, why they are both known as the Morningstar —

Know that as Venus makes us fall (in love), so too did Lucifer fall from the heavens after his rebellion against Father,

Know that love can inspire us to rebel against the ways of old,

Love, as the bringer of light and enlightenment, can set us free from the wrongdoings of our ancestors, of those who came before us, and it can give us the courage to become better than them, even if it means being outcast from their embrace —

Know that you did this for me, know that your love is what inspired me to live in truth — truth that would mean exile.

But I’d have it no other way.