Becoming

Barefaced, my anger bleeds colors retained too long. Surviving just beneath allegiance and it's propensity to deny; this is no newborn screaming for ignorance sake. This is the ancient brew which was placed on a shelf by idealism only to age into the brutally strong elixir merely waiting to devastate the foolishly bold lips that seek to tempt it's source.
Even I am afraid of what these rumblings will breed. I would choose to hide away rather than candidly leak this malignant toxin into the beauty around and without my troubled frame. I am not so blind as to deny how grotesquely this acrimony hangs on me. Grace and beauty cannot know my name as I am now; I can hardly choose to embrace it myself.
I am...
Unbecoming.
My bitter anger, my grief unveiled...
Unbecoming.
The conflict that breaks my neck and bends my black and white to gray...
Unbecoming.
I am...
...on the road to what's becoming of me.

Shadows of death

It's a difficult day when you begin to come to the full reality of your own humanity. The frailty of life suddenly comes crashing in and the mind can no longer live by the invincible mentality conjured up by the four year old with a sheet acting as a cape tied around her neck. Childhood never looks so sweet as in the moment you meet the fragrance of death.
At what point do we make peace with the idea of our own deaths? Has it been assigned to terminal illness or the moments before the accident that will steal your last breath? When is it ok to wrestle with whether or not you're ever going to be ready to die? When is it appropriate to look the fear of death straight in the eye and bid it farewell for the sake of fully accepting life?

I know I wasn't necessarily a normal child, but in my estimation the definition of normal has been lost somewhere in the vast sea of individuals who can all claim insanity on some level.
As a small child at the age of five I encountered this thought process about death. I wasn't looking for it, but trauma had a hand in bringing such dark topics to the forefront of my little mind.
My favorite grandfather, whom we called Dadu, gave in to a lifelong battle with depression and, quite unexpectedly, committed suicide leaving his entire family behind including my five year old self.
Suddenly the cold, hard, fact that death is not always out of your control was presented to my devastated heart. Suddenly this five year old was holding her own life in her hands questioning whether or not she had the right to live it or not. Thus began my battle of struggling with depression and being suicidal.
It wasn't because I hated my life. I had a magical childhood in most respects... I was blessed with wonderful parents who could do nothing but lavish love on their children. I wasn't looking for some sort of escape from anything. I just couldn't grasp why such a wonderful man had died. If he, being untouchable in my little mind, took his own life then why did I deserve to be alive? Incredibly twisted thoughts, I know, but I wasn't expressing them to anyone. So, unbeknownst to me, those thoughts slowly grew into solid pillars of truth within my heart. I lived most of my childhood subconsciously believing that I didn't deserve life; that I was worthless. It wasn't until I was eighteen that all of these lies began to surface. It wasn't until I stood toe to toe with my own death that I finally started to combat this secret struggle. It took time, honesty, and lots of love from the people in my life. I'm alive today because of that.
So all of that to say, that wasn't the way i would have liked to encounter the moment of wrestling with death. I would have preferred to look at it from a distance and contemplate how I was choosing to LIVE my life.
It took a few years before I could look at my own potential death in a healthy way. The moment came when I was incredibly happy and overflowing with love and joy. The question was not whether I wanted to die, or even if I was ready to die, but rather whether or not I could make peace with the idea of dying in a space of time when I didn't want to die. The question was if I died tomorrow; have I lived well? Have I loved well? Have I released well? Have I received well? Have a rejoiced well? Have I mourned well? Have I searched well? Have I accepted myself well? Could I make peace with whatever would happen next? Yes.
It was a good moment. Difficult, of course, but good.
I'll probably have more moments like that in my lifetime. Healthy ones. I can spot the unhealthy ones by now and I know what to do with those.

So for now I choose to live raw. I choose to wear the truth of my heart on my sleeve; whether it's beautiful or not.
I choose to live embracing love; even when it kills me.
I choose to live challenging every dormant corner in my soul to remember movement; even when I'm weary of growing pains.
The best part in it all is that I choose to live.

Digging in the archives 04.08.08

I shut my eyes tightly entering the world behind my eyelids; the hopelessness of being visionless is swiftly out of sight. Colors birthed from pressure create a suddenly starry night begging me to loose these bonds before they break through this porcelain skin. Sound is abruptly blurred, creating space for the faintest of beating…

Here I am. Silence has become me. Perfect peace suddenly knows me. I can just be.


From the darkness of unmeasured depths logic remembers its name and quickly reminds me that I’m only seconds away from ending this quiet reverie… I must open my eyes.

Digging in the archives 03.18.08

I ache for something real, but I'm weary of hope.
I'm tired of digging, remaining so politely unearthed.
Rending my heart to the mirage of depth, I find that I'm sick of grasping at these mere shadows only to descend into these unmerciful laments.

The tide is coming in...

Little Blue Umbrella

I can count on one hand the number of times my family went camping. We're beach people... Sleeping in a tent while bugs crawl into our ears doesn't appeal to all of us! It's the time that's currently being represented by my thumb that I happened to recall today. It was as I was walking in the pouring rain through the streets of Philadelphia, huddled under a mangled blue umbrella, that I remembered one of the first of the few memories I have of camping.

My brave parents were selfless enough to attempt camping with their five children (10 and under). I don't remember the to and from or even the where and when. I just remember the part where all seven of us were packed into the tent preparing to fall asleep. It was raining, both my parents were frazzled from their efforts at setting up camp while trying to rein in their five unruly children and quite ready to collapse. I can clearly remember my dad trying to explain to us why we couldn't touch the tent fabric while it was wet. “Guys, do not touch the tent fabric while it’s raining because it will allow the water to leak into the tent and WE WILL GET WET!”

Well I don’t need to explain how the letter of the law arouses sin… I was born into my rebellious ways and I had to touch the fabric and see what he was talking about! I wasn’t the only one… Soon they had at least four out of five of their children directly ignoring the warning that was given.  We proceeded to finger paint the thin ceiling of our small tent in a wildly inspired fashion. Or at least that’s how we saw things at the time. It didn’t take long before the rain made good on its promise to seep through the fingerprints of our curiosity and splash us with the consequences of our free will choices.

Needless to say, our camping trip came to an abrupt end and what had seemed to already be an eternally exhausting excursion for my parents became more like hell in the woods. My father’s poor head was already on its way to grey, and I’m quite positive that we helped it along on this memorable camping trip.

So here I am trying to stay somewhat dry on my journey to the subway station, and failing quite miserably, and I can’t help but contemplate how that childhood memory almost seems a shadow to the realities in my life now. I can’t help but picture the sky above me as the tent over my heart, my imagination conjuring up images of my now adult fingers tracing the fabric of my starry ceiling. I had never dreamt of the flood to which I was beckoning.

This time there was no fatherly warning about where I’d lay my fingers or what I’d reach for. This time it was just me and my desperate longing to explore and touch the outermost edge of my own comprehension. This time it’s just me clinging to a little blue umbrella, begging it to keep me from this rain that I cannot will away. I can’t help but feel for the umbrella, as it cannot bear the onslaught from the sky.  Even with all of its courage and heart, this little blue umbrella will not be able to keep me from this flood.  There’s just no staying dry this time.

I guess it’s time to learn to swim.

Admission

"Bind me up in nickels and dimes
clothe my unrelenting pride.
Will you still meet me beyond next years demise?

Masking colorful dreams behind blind eyes,
I torture my desire and suffocate my screaming hunger.

I am a mere thief.
I steal mercy and beg for unconditional peace.

Tell me, has truth ever looked so appalling?

Find me.

Leave me.

Break me.

Keep me.

5.31.11

You.
You're a train that has more stations than rails in my heart.
Songs secretly whisper your sound leaving melody and her companions feeling lonely and forlorn.
You.
You're the trace of lingering fragrance caught in this intersection that finds me passing through; stealing my thoughts and rendering me captured.
You.
You're the keeper of my secrets and now I can't even hear you holding them tight.
You.
You're the color which I won't forget, void, or reassign... Yet can no longer paint with.
You.
You're the memory within the memory folded inside of the dream. Sleep knows no escape.
You.
You're the touch that fingertips recall and the feeling that skin can't shake.

You.
So far from resembling a tragic mistake;
you are the beautiful ache.