there's this tiredness in my bones, a type i struggle to define. some days it feels like i'm dragging a dead body behind me, bones rattling and flesh tearing against the drag of the road. but sometimes that body is more alive, has more flesh and blood, but the tears start to gush out blood, marking my steps.
most days, like today, i just cry. i cry a river of pain and regret and resentment, every wave cascading down that same dead beat body. sometimes i find myself crying for almost no reason at all, coming home to my bed only to sob into the sheets for an eternity.
you'd think that, after all these years of trying, she'd be a little more malleable to the idea that you're growing. growing how? up, down, sideways; here, there, everywhere; why, when, how? Whether she thinks you're evolving or devolving, you're still changing either way.
and she hates it.
you're not who she asked for. you're not what she wanted.
"I hoped for a boy, but only because I didn't want to bring a girl into the world and make her feel the same pain I did," she says.
and now she has a girl, so because you aren't what she asked for, she can inflict the pain of her forefathers onto your small, fragile, tumor-riddled body without rhyme or reason.
it starts with something as innocent as "just listen to what I say, and I'll take care of you."
you feel uncomfortable by her words. warning signs in your vision. but you ignore them.
Then it turns into, "Why won't you just obey me? Why do you ask so many questions? All you ever do is escalate everything."
your breaths fasten, your head feels like it's expanding. obey? are you a dog?
and then it decays into "you're ungrateful, you've got a roof over your head and 3 meals a day. what more could you want" and "obey me. blindly obey me. i don't care if I'm wrong. it doesn't matter. I am your parent, not your friend. If I tell you to jump, you'll do it."
and that is the moment you realize you are in fact, a dog. a mutt. something to be trained and make money. you live to serve and you please, to be spare parts for something greater.
. you've got just over a year left, and you'll be free. but it's agony. day after day, more arguing than there is talking. it's unfortunate. but you're trapped, with only your slowing heartbeat to keep you company.
and once you've taken a breath, maybe two, maybe three, it dawns on you that there Is nothing you can do to please her. and all you can do is take solace in that fact.
what if we were the salve to each others burns? two bright bodies, knee deep in mud and darkness. I saw you and the air smelled like sun and rain. you looked so alive that it felt like dew could gather on your skin.
A little memoir (?) I submitted to scholastic (and didn't win).
Identity, by definition, is the fact of being something or someone or somewhere that is. How one identifies is up to the individual, but one's identity is influenced by circumstance and company, so is it really a choice made of free will? What if one cannot be defined by human concepts of identity? Would they then have every identity at once or simply be nothing at all? If I am devoid of identity, then what am I to become–or rather– unbecome?
There is an extensive question debated constantly within the field of psychology: “Are you your mind, or your body?” It seems to be a rather simple question, but you would find that it is a great deal more complex. You can trick your body into acting differently by use of your mind, such as when you smile to ignore pain. The opposite is also true, where you can trick your mind into thinking differently by using your body, such as the placebo effect. Your mind can influence your body and vice versa, so perhaps the question is as so: “Are you more your mind or your body?”, where you could say being more your mind is being logistical and being more your body is being impulsive. In that case I would be my mind, as my heart no longer has desires to impulsively act upon. It had passion at one point, of course, hopes and dreams and goals. But as the days grew longer and my back bent out of shape, I would no longer see the horizons I had once admired, as I would lose myself in other irrelevant skylines.
The Bible speaks on the division between soul and spirit, between joins and marrow. It says the Word of God can divide between them, though they are inexplicably intertwined. If soul and spirit can genuinely be separated, what differentiates them? Soul, to me, is built on experience and hardships. It is the ocean, whether calm or stormy, it contains multitudes of unexplored territories, millions of mysteries never to be discovered. It is sitting on a porch watching warm rain fall and collect into distinct puddles of liquid mercury. It is like the hippocampus in the brain, a regulator of emotions, prone to making calculated, rational decisions. The spirit feels more like the first flight of a fledgling. The rush of the fall, the freedom of the glide, the adrenaline coursing through its veins. It is a wild horse running through the mountains, wind brushing its hide with the stars to guide it home. It is like the amygdala, the absolute expression of emotion and color involved in making one human.
I feel as if I am a very old soul–akin to a rock– though by definition I am quite young. If age is defined by maturity, however, then I far surpass the years of the majority of people on this planet. My soul is at rest, but it is unfulfilled. Though I am unsure as to what I am to fill it with. I have known love and hatred, grief and pleasure, pain and ecstasy–yet I cannot remember their touch. If my identity is in my experience, my feelings, but they are inexistent, then what identity have I put on?
The modern world says identity is what one chooses to be, that whichever way one perceives themself, that they will be. As a child, a painter was to be my chosen career. I worked tirelessly to achieve that dream, yet it lost its spark. Similar occurrences have transpired in my day– to–day life where no matter how hard I try to be something I always become nothing, and in the end I become everything I am not. But I am a lot of other things, such as a sister or a friend, or even something as trivial as a person with a head on their shoulders. But no one ever identifies as only those things, because it is not something they feel is at their core.
It is to say that identity is a social construct made by people to categorize themselves into hierarchies. But I cannot help but wonder if this is the way things are meant to be, to avoid abysmal chaos. Belonging to a group not unlike yourself must, of course, give one a sense of belonging and security. I have no qualms against such a feeling, but I would rather be able to belong without the constant voice in my head telling me I must identify myself to do so. I would like to become everything, and yet nothing at all.
as we're on the topic of celestial beings it's always cool to think about how we are literally called dust in the bible(just wait), being dust has so much meaning to it really. we are made of earth, which contains life, food, animals, plants, violence, war, death, love, peace, etc. our bodies encompass everything that god has created, making all of us mini-mini-planets crash-landed on earth.
It’s totally understandable why ancient people worshipped the sun moon and stars. Light is very beautiful, but I also think there’s something equally wonderful about humans and celestial objects both being created by the same god. Kind of like our little siblings. Now I’m just repeating that cool poem.