A Writing Experience

Purely devoted to my writings—those both poetic and haphazard; thoughts, musings, fears, and eager revelations. My more eclectic and less writing based blog can be found at fuckingunicornschasingrainbows.tumblr.com

[thechildrendontlaugh]

seven. veiled. salome.

with each gyration

of your erotic dance

an illusion of man

soundlessly falls away

wolfmother

of this primal earth

what man has ripped out your tongue

you speak in grunts moans

heavy whispers

reduced to sex

handled with wild-eyed oogles and

calloused hands

what Hell you entered, what God you freed

the Moon bowed low, the Sun held high

and this is where Life has kept you

backseated host I remember

we called you

Gaia

Kali

Astarte

First Mother

Universe Creator

Womb of the Sun

tomb of all else

you held Death and Birth

and the chasm between your thighs

hummed

with the ageless sound of maniac reverberation

what tales you still whisper

what stories you still tell

in the thrusts and dips of these pulsating rhythms

these slaps, these yips

these neck-rolls, and high-kicks

one veil falls

and I find myself standing in the center of it all

another,

and the walls alight

a third, a fourth, and a fifth

my body hovers, my soul’s on fire,

my ego collapses

I catch my breath

and then a sixth

I see all else

the heavens, the hells, the lines between them

the blurs, the blendings

the this is that, and that is this

the mergings, the pairings

the loops and swirls

the go aways, the come back agains

the transformations masked as collapses

the collisions, the undoings

the makings again

the tornado of transfusion

transmogrification

I see God, and I see Satan

and a Woman laughs because she birthed them both

They are Her, and She is I, and I am Us

I open my mouth to cry aloud—Wahoo! Yes! I get i—

—but Salome never stopped her dancing

her twists, her turns

her leaps, her dives

and when the Seventh veil falls, the Lights go out

truth becomes a metaphor, fact turns into fiction

the sun is still imprisoned, the moon stuck at the gates

doubt creeps in, fear takes over

mistaken revelations, misguided intuition

I knew the truth once

didn’t I! didn’t I?

the world goes Black, and I’m sent back

the girl stops dancing

and there is just the measured heaving of her breasts

the rattle of the dance

come to

its end.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

The Unbecoming [This is How the Grief Reshapes You]

Sometimes, I think my Grief will undo me. As though I were caught in a Purgatory, swirling the drain until I descend, once more, into Hell. Into Madness.  The unreality of reality brightens like the lightheaded sensation which strikes when one arises too fast. I am having lots of internal back-and-forth around this idea of Unearned Wisdom. Learning a thing too fast, experiencing too rapidly, and caught in a breathless haze where all pretense of sense has dissolved and evaporated. Disappeared on high into the Heavens, or been sucked down deep into the Earth. And I am left tethered only by my fear…

I know that on the other side of this, there will be a kind of understanding which will be foundational in all the things I will see, experience, and feel, in my life. All the ways in which it will grant my own soul peace, and all the ways in which it will, in turn, offer solace to others. Where this will be a touchstone moment, anchoring me in reality void of illusion, where I see and know the intricate bonds which forevermore connect me, to you. But that moment feels an impossibly long way off. And I do not know if it is quite an offering I wish to be able to keep near me, in the knowing that it is to be served in helping another. It feels impossibly cruel, to shape this grief in such a way, where it is entombed in silver-linings. It will go on living anyway, so why not as a prettied thing?

My writing is more cynical than I actually feel. It is a flimsy barrier I default in erecting. I know the grief will suck me down again. Will barricade me behind empty walls, open rooms, skylight too far out of reach for me to climb up to and feel more closely warming against my skin. It is a room, I know, which should be inviting. I can make it into anything I so choose. I can splash upon its walls any color. Add any décor. Re-form. Re-fashion. So much freedom, is terrifying. It feels like a trick, a trap. I know it will tap my shoulder to get me to turn around, and scream into my opened mouth, again, and I will balloon with its echoes squeezing past every organ, every cell, until I am swollen with it. Until I am lighter than air. If only I could see that it is trying to lift me higher—and not instead, fatten me up to lead me off to slaughter.

I have never quite envisioned Death as I do now. I have never quite been afraid of it, as I find myself now. It has been months, perhaps a year, in the making. The fear is a foreign intrusion, I know this. Something I have picked up from the land, or perhaps in bumping the people here, bumping into their philosophies, and sightless seeing. I have remarked, more than once, that this is a land of hungry ghosts, that it retains all the trappings of what might be my own personal hell. Why am I so reluctant to escape?

There are things I am trying to remember, to recall. There is a tangible terror I have, in forgetting. At times it is hard to discern whose forgetting, and whose remembering, and I realize I have been grieving a long time. That I have carried with me, a lifetime of memories, that I have been too afraid to set down, lest it be forgotten. If not me, then who, will do the recollecting? If not me, then who, will carry these things which are too precious to be dropped, and then forgotten—how will we ensure that we will not repeat the sins that we remain burdened by? I realize that I have never been good at hoping. It requires a kind of trust that is unfamiliar to me. That I can be my most vulnerable that will not, in such a way, be seen as an invitation towards my own exploitation. My own betrayal. I have been conditioned to believe, that there is both an inevitability of suffering, and an all-seeing-father, who will allow such suffering to continue on. That bliss only comes at the end, and its payment is a forever rejection and denial of the self’s pursuit in love, or joy, or adoration not directed at one’s simultaneous saviour-torturer. Grief is shaping me in a real way, to let fall away this impression, and I am struggling against myself, to believe in a kinder hoping that protects just as much as it empowers, just as much as it Loves. There are parts of me, long-buried, forgotten as an act of survival and sanity in this insane-world, which are clawing viciously, to get back to the surface of my Being. They are aching to seize this moment that might pass too soon, and are activating a lifetimes-strategized push where so much feels at stake. And at the center of that all-or-nothing of the world which hangs in the balance…is a little girl, with an intensity about her, that in a moment, might be snuffed out. Who is curious and wild-eyed, and confrontational. Who recognizes the god-like in all things, and is frustrated that no one acts in reverence of the same. Who is a seasoned warrior, trapped in a vulnerable body. An old woman, reduced back to a tiny mouth and tiny hands. A big heart which threatens to explode. An incarnation of Love that is slowly wilting. Petals falling steadily, the seed sucking back its leaves, its stalk. It's Life.

This moment is asking me to grow again. Against a backdrop of a lifetime of world-reality fears. It is begging me to grow, again. Death has always been a birthing process, it says to me. Something must die, in order to be willed back into Life again. This is a place, a time, for you to be shaped by nothing but your own mind, guided by nothing but your own hand. To open your heart, and let the incorruptible nature of your Being, at long awaited time, be allowed to become.

There is nothing easy about this process. I do not know, at many times, if I will make it, if I can hold enough of myself together, to continue on, when so much insists on falling away. I have forgotten why I compel myself to remember. I have remembered why I always choose this forgetting. The fear advances, a sound of wind being sucked somewhere deep and far away, grows louder…and before I slip back down again, I feel a faint press of moist cold against my skin which says to me, without words, “Remember, I love you, and you are a thing of love. Remember me, as I remember you. Come find me…”

[thechildrendontlaugh]

July 31st 2011

There are absolutes in life which I had carelessly—childishly—up ‘til now, left ill-considered. I thought haphazardly about Death, and fleetingly about Grief. These were things I had, somehow, dedicated my life’s work to, but didn’t know what true awakenings—rites of passage—around these things awaited me.

My greatest ministry in life has been the Ministry of Love. This too was a work I did not truly understand, until the end.

I had to euthanize my dog—my companion, my love, my Shadow, my soulmate—Jackson, on his 13th birthday. I knew, three days before, that I would lose him. He looked me in the eye as we were both struggling to stay awake throughout the night, afraid of what sleep might bring to the other, and I knew. He hid immeasurable pain from me, as I struggled to quickly complete a mission I started a year and a half ago, but felt that, with each triumph a harbinger of sorrow and bad luck lay just ahead of me. It was a pain, at the end, I realized, I had, myself, been feeling all along that had been entangled and entwined within my own pain. Connected in a way I hadn’t realized, until the context of that connection began to fade away. In a world of absolutes, it is hard to tell myself, that I did not kill my dog. It is hard to say that Love of that measure—of that impossibly compassionate, loving measure—is not the greatest marker of what Perfect Love is. To be looked deeply in the eyes of the one who has carried you for so long, and who, you too, have somehow, been so divinely, graciously, chosen, to also carry and care for—and have them say without words, “Now…please, now.” There are two halves of knowing of which my broken heart now carries, struggling to integrate, make sense of, forgive. That Jackson’s death, was on our own terms—that he did not want me to awaken to his cooled body and departed soul, and I did not want him to have to continue being a mirror of strength for burdens too great—and that within him still remained a vivacity of life, a courage, an audacity, to keep continuing on, in spite of himself. He knew that I loved him unfailingly though, and that this ask—this final desperate request—would be honored. We howled together that final night. Wept, and held the other. And in our own ways, said, “I love you…I love you…I love you…” How could I not love you? This patient creature who taught me the beauty of Stillness. Who beckoned me, each time, back into the Sun. Who traveled alongside at the tender, grueling, sweet beginnings of the greatest adventure of my life. Who taught me Love. The measure of Love. The connection of Love. The oneness that can happen in Love. Where the pain felt, is the pain shared. And that the greatest ask of Love—to let me go…to let me die…to let me know peace, once again—would be honored.

We are, each of us, living on borrowed time. It is a dissonance we carry with us, consciously or not, all our lives. I thought—like a child—I had forever, and when the end neared, I fretted, because I realized, I did not know what happened at the “end”, and I felt consumed by an immeasurable guilt and grief, and shame. How could I ask him to go forward, before me, without me. How could I release him to a great unknowing. How could my love be enough to cover and penetrate that fear. The greatest fear. It has been a year of Faith. 33. Of illusions igniting like cigarette burns and curling in over themselves. And yet, there was so much beauty, intermixed with pain, at the end. And even in the depths and hollows of my grief, I know, as I knew then in those final moments, and in the quiet hum that followed too soon after as I told him it was OK to go…that I would be OK when he left…

Jackson—my love, my sweet boy, my companion and soulmate, my shadow—is everything that is good and sweet, and perfect in this world. He is tenderness, and gentle reminders. He is laughter, and sunlight. He is prisms of color which forever adorn my world in rainbows. He is the sweet figurine I found waiting for me, perched in an Olive tree, immediately upon leaving Sage—his final resting place. He is with me, he has always been with me, and he will always be with me.

I do not carry my grief—I carry him, in my heart, always.

July 31st 2024

[thechildrendontlaugh]

Hunger

I have not encountered white people who have wished to devour me, for a long time. But I did, again, recently, on Sunday. There is a look I am familiar with, the feeling however—the recognition of the feeling—is foreign to me. Was foreign to me.

I’m still unsure of what I felt. I can’t exactly place it as a feeling, it is more an image. The first is a plague of locust, descending upon the land, wide-eyed, jaws unhinged, emitting a sound at a frequency I cannot pick up on but one which the others, the other locust of this plague, themselves vibrate with and attune to. The second image, the one that feels clearer to me, more reflective of this strange time that I am embodying and being birthed into, is one in which I am drowning, and these lost souls who have somehow come and infiltrated these once sweet waters, grasp at me to take from me my very essence of being. My life. And attempt to devour me by pulling me down and using my body as some sort of life-raft, to get to Heaven. I know that my body will not be enough. That it is a single, solitary thing that must remain intact—that must, in fact, still find the remaining missing pieces of itself—and that it will not get them to where they think they hope to be. Where they are confused they are not already warmly invited or welcomed. Extended a mercy—an invitation—that I have somehow received instead. A birthright.

It is a dangerous thing. When someone recognizes the power you have which you yourself are unable to recognize or know the extent of. When someone is attracted to some essence you have grown nose-blind to. That you have, all your life, inhaled, and exhaled.

How do I begin to speak into words, the shift within and outside of myself, I have felt for months now. When the feelings are still more images, and less words. I have slipped through both time, and space. I am not quite at the margins, but I am terrified of being in the center. There is a heightened sensitivity, an awareness. An Awakening, which has occurred. A muddying—or perhaps an intensity of clarifying—where I wake up to the same misguidings and false lines of delineation followed and even worshipped, by those who came before me. I have fallen into a space where the illusion of time has been smeared away. The smudges make my breath catch in my throat. I see enough to know that I should be scared. I see enough to scare me. I cannot see past my uncertainty. Or this fear.

I think of the age of “33”. What I thought it signified and would bring in. And what it actually seems to mean, and has ushered in. Was this version of me always waiting at the wings, to step onto a stage and recite lines that I don’t recall, but somehow, in the minute-to-minute utterances, I do remember. Right now, it is all deception that I conjure back to me. Lies, disempowerment, hurt, suppression. This pervading mantra that, “I am Bad.” Not quite “evil”, but bad. A thing to be punished, to be entombed and chained to the endless floor of eternity. I do not know if I have dabbled with more than I should have. And I am not sure of who has made that “should”. If that too is a lie, and I am, with this journey of mine, disentangling myself from Lies, and weaving new Fates of half-forgotten Truths.

I am hungry for this Truth. I myself have a hunger, and I think that is why, when I experience those who share a hunger themselves, I want to stick around, as though I will not be devoured, but the thing sought out. As though Hunger can distinguish between the two when it is starved enough.

I do my nibbling slow. And spit out a lot of what I try—and then come back to it, pushing my tongue against the mush of it, to see if there is a taste there, from in my infancy, that I recall, which eludes me in this illusion of being anything more than the child that I am. It all comes back slowly. I am impatient. There is more that I know I should know by now. (Whose “should” is that?) But don’t. Or do, but the remembering is incomplete, and paranoid. Unsure of itself, and who or what can be trusted. I have a thing in me which is not quite ripe, but it emits a frequency of its own. A scent. That I think—believe—at our core, we are attuned to. I am at odds with it, but not enough to push it completely away. I am just beginning to allow myself to suppose, that maybe it does not intend to do me any harm. That it is not another intent on devouring me by first descending upon me and looking at me sweetly, showering me with curiosity and wonder, holding the reflection of myself back up to me to mesmerize and distract me, beguiling me into staying, when I should be taking flight.

Who am I? And is that even the right question to ask anymore?

[thechildrendontlaugh]

The Audacity to Hope: Letters to You

Dear you—

You brought this book up in passing the first day we met, and it stuck with me ever since, so much so that I had to pick it up and read it myself for the first time.

I didn’t get it at first, the appeal of it, but I think I do now.

A friend of mine recently mentioned to me the “audacity to hope,” that we as humans have. That each day, we get up, convincing ourselves that today will be better, even if, maybe it won’t actually be. That we continue persisting—hoping—and striving after some innocent part of us, to keep it alive, to nurture it. To pursue it, relentlessly.

In the book, Holden’s audacity to hope, wilts and is smothered early on. There is a constant tension—a grief—in him feeling so much, and not knowing where to put it. He is holding so much, and doesn’t know how or where to set it down. And he has to go away, for a time, to hopefully get that back, and learn how to be—how to authentically be—in a world hell-bent on keeping him from himself.

There is a sorrow I feel in your own going away. But also my own, “audacity to hope”.

That you will find yourself. Be at peace with yourself. That you will come to know that you can set whatever you need to down, in order to be yourself. To return to yourself. To the you that was slowly suffocated, and also began to wilt away. That you will find a way to allow breath to be breathed into seemingly dead and dying things. That you will awaken back to yourself, and embrace you with tenderness, care, compassion, and love. That you will let time heal, but you will not let it cause you to forget.

There are other audacities to hope, that I will keep for myself, but will wish with all my heart, reaches you even in the silence.

I hope you whisper you own audacities to hope, in this silence, too—and that they reach me back here, in my own wilting and striving, and hoping.

—Love, me

[thechildrendontlaugh]

The Audacity to Hope

I never read “The Catcher in the Rye” in school. It was never assigned to me, and I never had any desire, until recently, to pick it up. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to get from it—I deliberately avoided any summaries or reflections on it, had a vague understanding of who the main character might be and modern “controversy” around it, but went in pretty blind to anything substantial about it. It was brought up, off-handedly, in conversation, forgotten later on by the one who mentioned it. But it stuck with me.

The story was off-putting. Low on conflict, or plot. A character study of a young man who felt deliberately hard to connect to. I found myself bored, and confused as to what made this book one of the “classics”. It didn’t feel compelling, and I was confused about what its “purpose” was. The story it was trying to tell.

I had a friend a few weeks back talk about “the audacity to hope” that humans have. The constant struggle we have of convincing ourselves, that tomorrow, will be better, even if it’s not true. But how we lean on this anyway—devote ourselves to this belief. How it becomes the sustaining mantra we lie ourselves into. And we do this again, and again. Each day, for the rest of our lives. That stuck with me too.

It wasn’t until the end, that the story began to form itself for me. That I began to see Holden. I could feel where the tension within him arose. Where it remained rearing its head, struggling to be seen, to understand its own self. A clash of traditional masculinity that could not articulate the non-traditional emotional intelligence he was plagued by. An earnestness of hope, which struggled against a cruel reality that invited in and encouraged an inauthenticity of being. Where he did not have the words, but he had the feelings, and he had his own internal conflict which was squeezed tight by the assumptions of everyone else. Of who Holden was supposed to be, needed to be. And how this deeply troubled, and sweet boy, was wilting beneath it. Had wilted beneath it. Been crushed by this audacity of hope that could not stand up to every bullhorned message he received from the world around him.

I wonder if this was inevitable. If this is, more or less, the same wilting we all, at some point in time, will be faced with. This existential struggle where it seems as though we are perhaps struggling against the forces of life itself, challenging its assumptions that a striving for more—for an almost coveted realness—means being mistaken as odd, or not quite right, and ostracized away from ourselves. The purity of ourselves. Of our hope.

I think about the weight of burdens which we force ourselves to carry. The difficulty in putting some of that down. The seeming impossibility of it. The urgency in holding and containing, and understanding it all. Molding our sensitivities around it, and how this shaping so often breaks us where we only meant to remain soft, pliable. How it is so hard, finding a line between the two. A hardness, and a softness. A clear-eyed sharpness towards reality…and an ethereal, ever-lasting hope which can sustain us through the embittering, devastating realities that can leave one at war with themselves. When did hope mean picking up? Why is it so hard to set down? Why is there a seeming obligation to continue moving forward, to persist, to ache after? Can the ache ever die down, or does it remain compelling, because it is the only force that can truly bring us to the place where we were shaped and created to be…

[thechildrendontlaugh]

A Year In Review: Earthquake

I have hated nearly every moment I have spent living here in San Francisco. It has been a terrible plague upon my life which has rendered me less of myself each day. No amount of preparation could have bolstered me strong enough to be here. I am filled with an inescapable regret. How could I have been so wrong about this part of the path?

It has taken so much from me…and I feel as though I am left with nothing in return. With whole chasms of sorrow, and grief. An endless pit of disappointment. A blighted city that has sunk into a cavern. Suffocating me. And my only thought is: I did this to myself.

I have been naïve. I have been hopeful. I just want my life to look different than it has—I want it to be different. I want to know I am capable of making that change. Of returning back to me. Of re-claiming me. It has take so much of my fire. So much of my spirit. I have had to claw at myself, trembling. And I can’t say any of it has been worth it. The impact I have made is nothing in comparison to the devastation I have felt. The loneliness I have experienced. A betrayal of hope. Relief has been teasingly fleeting. Why have I come here in the first place? What work did I think I could do, what information I could glean—steal, and take back. A loss of a feeling of community, means not feeling safe, means remaining stagnant. I don’t know what to do with this grief. I don’t know where to set it down, or what to pick up in its place. This is the season where I should feel my most powerful, my most sure. And I feel scared, and small, and lonely. This path has grown murkier, when it should have become more clear. My trust, shakier. When my faith in myself, should be at its greatest. I hate where I live, I hate who I live with. I hate the people I attract, and the ones who leave me behind. I do not have the strength to keep moving forward. To be dragged ahead as time soldiers on.

Last night, I could not sleep. So I allowed my mind to wander, thinking of the peace an aneurysm might grant me. How I would not have to think, would not have to make any decisions. Would not have to be disappointed. Would not have to pathetically throw my fists at fate, demanding something more. That its cruelty. It’s randomization, would strike for a final time, having the last breath in this pitiful song.

What’s my motivation? What’s my purpose? Why am I here? Is it compelling enough?

What of happily ever after?

This is a start. In writing, I am able to notice that something in me, has dislodged. Good. A seismic shift to toss my life upside down. Where I no longer am trying to take calculated risks. I have dreamt so much of fire, how could I possibly attempt to mistake myself as a dead thing.

I’ve bit my tongue too long. I will open my mouth, and let the blood spill out.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

O, Here We Go Again: The Samsara of Eternal Dreaming

I have had the sweetness of a story on my tongue for months now. I know how it goes, but I am unsure exactly, of how to write it. It is about the cyclical revolution of karma. It is about longing, and heartbreak. It is about seeing, and doubting. It is about piercing the veil—and hoping it is able to look back and see through you too.

I have been carrying on a romance with a man who reminds me so desperately of X. From the very first moment of our encounter, it has been surreal—dreamlike. I have struggled with wanting to wake up. Tossing myself about, transfixed and sickened by my confusion. It is affording me all the closure I could have ever wanted. All the affirmation. All the stillness.

It is a nightmare.

It is every haunting narrative, come back to stand before me. Wash over me. Remind me. Visit me, and tease a kind of torment. A buried memory that flashes back, that I re-live, in real-time, and can see for what it is. What it was. What it is, I think, trying to now teach me.

What is it trying to teach me?

I am resentful of this re-remembering. Of this buried lesson repeating itself in tests I know I am failing. I want to punish myself. I am restless in wanting to force my suffering. I am committing the crime of hoping. I am talking in riddles again. I am intoxicated. I love it. I miss it. I hate it.

As much as my life has changed, it has also, at its root, remained the same. I am listless. The itch of wanting to write returns, and I am almost afraid that I have forgotten how to do such. The musicality of it is faint to me. I am all heel. I want to tell my mother that I have fallen in love. Impossibly so. I think about the short-story that came to me long before this, and I am convinced that I am stuck in some kind of karmic samsara. I am not sure I know what love is. I am experiencing a waking dream I am only aware of such when I when the hallucinatory feelings stop. I am again caught up with an emotionally unavailable man.

How could this happen like this again? I was so careful, so deliberate. I came here to complete a mission, for a particular purpose—and I am losing myself, once again, in the illusion of…being chosen. I have a particular kind of hunger, a specific kind of need. It has taken five years to find this shattered piece, again.

I realize now, what I have always known about X, but it has taken this encounter with Bam-Bam (Mailman) for me to really see it. I am intoxicating. I am undeniably god-like. I conjure up and project such a primal impulse of existence, that is hot to the touch. That pulls you in. That reflects back an inescapable truth. And it is too much. It requires—demands—a kind of bravery, a courage, that is impossible to not be afraid of. That by its very nature, is not safe. And that you always walk—run—away from. I do not know what I have done, but I know punishment when I see it. This feeling is so rare, but it is nearly exact with Bam-Bam, as it was with X. They are in fact, so similar. Too similar. There is a tragic ruggedness about them. Men who have a hard time constraining themselves to a world too modern for its own good. So removed from its own self. But conform themselves all the same. Because the illusion of safety keeps us from being teased over the edge.

He told me I tasted like the Sun.

I haven’t been able to dream in weeks.

I need to wake up.

Wake up.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

Letters to You: A False Declaration of 'Goodbye'

Hi Bam-Bam

I’m sure you know what this will say, but I want to say it anyway. As full as I can, as honestly as I can. As concisely as I can.

I can’t keep seeing you.

When I think about how I would want my own love-story to go, it can’t start off with “and he was in a relationship at the time…” no matter how surreal or dreamlike—or full of hope—our first encounter had been. This is one of the most painful things I’ve had to do in a long time, but I’ve never been able to shy away from the right thing to do, even if it was hard…even if it meant 5 years of suffering and hurting, and blaming myself. I hold myself to such a high standard of integrity, and bravery, and I’ve been pretending otherwise. It’s easy to do around you because you make me feel so…safe, and happy, and warm, and I never thought I would feel that again, or be seen by another person the way you see me, and I have wanted so badly to hang on to that feeling. To bask in it forever if I could.

But it reminds me of all the times I have waited and been left behind. Where I have hoped to be chosen, and wasn’t. Where I have chased after crumbs, or fallen to my own knees, begging to be loved. And I want so badly to have the chance to be loved, fully, by you. And love fully in return. And I can’t imagine it lasting if it starts like this. A secret. A shame. That would haunt me for the rest of my life. It is so hard for me already, to look myself in the eye.

I don’t want to say “this was fun while it lasted”, because it wasn’t fun. It was steady. It was refreshing. It was hopeful. It has filled me with a joy I have not felt in a long time, maybe ever. A kind of peace and reassurance that filled me with a certainty I could follow until the end of my life, and beyond. I was beaming—I have not let this sun in me, shine in such a way before, I hate to extinguish it. I hate to wake up.

I could have loved you. I wanted to. I think maybe I had already begun to. That sounds so silly, and wild, but it’s true. I wanted to love you. To be sustained on the stolen moments. The touches, the hunger of wanting to hold you against me longer. To kiss you. To be loved on by you. I wanted it all. I want it all. But I can’t get by with just pieces of you. I want to taste you without guilt. Devour you without shame. Without a hole in my heart telling me, “it always happens like this, you were a fool to believe—to hope—it would be different this time.”

I want it to be different this time

[thechildrendontlaugh]

The Hero's Journey: We Have Always Been Here

I graduated with my Masters, Sunday—Mother’s Day. And it was one of the worst days of my life. It typified so much. My graduate school experience, my move to San Francisco. And what it truly means, for one to find themselves venturing onto their own, “hero’s journey”. I am in the midst of my mourning, and so it is hard, to try to sit with it all. Let it wash over me, and take from it…something more meaningful than suffering. To be more than cynical or jaded in accepting a reality in which I am always backhandedly receiving, what I beg for—travel on bloody knees, to meet and sacrifice all of myself, in service of. I did not realize, that there would be so much Undoing, in the process of my Becoming. If I had known…is the question I am continuously finding myself returning to. Over, and over again. Revisiting my uncertainties around “free will” vs “fate”—if this is how it was always meant to be, if I would have ended up here, anyway…if I ever really had any say in the matter, or if this play was already scripted long ago, and my fitful rebellions…are also part of the scene.

I am finding it hard to celebrate this accomplishment. I want to bury it. Swallow it and privately shit it out—bury it deep within the earth in unmarked grave…and fade away in my own existence as I remind myself, we did all we could, and perhaps it is time, now, finally, to let that be enough.

I am grieving, when I should be celebrating. I am finding myself, once again, sinking into dark depression, when I should be uplifted by the endless possibilities now presented to me. Possibilities I worked hard for. Those long-buried seeds are finally beginning to sprout—I should be rejoicing for the rich fruits now being borne…

I feel foolish for believing my hero’s journey, would be easy. That knowing I was driven by a piercing white-hot center, was enough. That wanting good—that wanting to give good, was enough to spare me, enough to mean that I would be spared from the harsher realities in life. Instead, I feel as though I have only managed to attract them. Attract a kind of malicious undoing which comes closer each time, in destroying me. Annihilating me.

I am hesitating at the threshold.

I know that I can not retreat to what lay behind me…but I am so uncertain of what lay ahead. There may be a kind of deception found within the illusion of clarity, but if offers a kind of familiarity, a stability, I do not have now. I told someone recently, that I feel spiritually homeless. I feel compacted in my loneliness, and there is an impenetrable ache in being able to find somewhere to lay my head. To rest my body. To soothe my soul. I have returned, once again, to the cusp, where I must make the choice, of Hope. And I am stalling—for where has ‘hope’ left me previously? And yet in my heart, I know this too, is part of the story. This tension that is relieved, always relieved, with acceptance—that I am nothing without Hope…and I wish so desperately, to be more.

I wish I could document here, the particulars of what has plunged me into this familiar depression. But there is an internal barrier in such vulnerability. I think too, the details don’t really matter. That they are, in a way, interchangeable. It is the feeling which would have always been the same, regardless, anyway. And it’s only that feeling, which matters in the end. I know I will return to this part of the story—this moment which carries on eternal—and place it back in my mouth, and in my hands, and continue reshaping it. Trying to get the feel of it right. It is after all, the same story I have been telling my entire life.

I am moving slowly, cautiously, to my celebrating. To my more than acknowledgement of a rite of passage completed, a threshold crossed, an irrevocable, ineffable, shift having occurred. Right now, it feels as though all the potential parallel realities have collapsed in on themselves—on this reality I am within now. And I find myself pulled every which way of where possibility, might guide me. I have a habit of lingering too long, but I want to linger here, in this Stillness a moment longer. To see some beauty in this, where there might otherwise only be painful reminders of what I can no longer be, because I chose this particular path—or had it chosen for me. I remain questioning if this was the best path for me to take, and some small, Knowing part of me continues to whisper back to me, “yes…”

I can’t see it. But I have to believe it. I have to trust it. I have to allow myself, if nothing else, to hope—to always, continue to hope. I cannot yet fully see her…but I can feel her, and the life she has curated and had blessed upon her. The her that I have always been Becoming. She is laughing, beckoning me closer. She sings of so much good, so much happiness. So much Love. She enwraps me in this dream like a lullaby—an unfailing hum, of the reassurance of the Universe…She has not given up on me—I pray I will not give up on her.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

This Little Light of Mine: Transformation When We Only Meant A Shedding

I am needing to leave my therapist.

It is something I have known—the two of us really—for quite some time now. But always a little fire would bloom, and I would see the smoke and know that all my energy would need to be directed to putting it out. On the cusp of a potential loss, how could I voluntarily abandon myself. But it is time, and it has been for quite a long while now.

I have been thinking all this weekend, about what has stopped me. While also trying to dig in and peek at my deeper, core wounding. What it is—what it is really—and the ways in which I have avoided it.

There was a beautiful cazimi in Mercury this Saturday, and while I am not too often taken by astrology, I cannot deny the dream-like unfolding my life has decided to take. Or perhaps return to. A surreal encounter with myself. With the world. That feels like an ongoing trip where I might easily see the tethering and connecting lines, the pulsating dots, and the whole of the Universe, humming to me in gentle, sweet anticipation. Why have I blocked off this side of me? This iteration? And why for so long? Perhaps more earnestly, is the question of why now? Of what makes this moment different from all the other moments which preceded it—and what makes it so different from all the moments that will follow after. What is being led up to? And why might I now demonstrate that I am “ready”?

I, have a longing to be seen. I talked about this recently, but it wasn’t until reading it momentarily ago, that I realized that there were some dots pulsating all along, waiting for me to see the threads. I think I am beginning to see them now, or at least what they are hinting at, although the “why” of it all, still frustratingly eludes me. I want to be seen. In the fullness of who and what I am. To not be rejected—to not show my bigness, and be feared. Cut down, and made small. I had two, back-to-back instances of this most recently which flayed me. Which caused a “core wound” to flare up, and for the threat of a spiraling towards this illusive “why now?”

I can’t see the connection. Only feel them. And even then, it feels like ghosts. Like the imagining of wind, but no actual breeze blows. And I find myself thinking to myself, wondering, if maybe this is indication of an armor built too resiliently. That it blocks out everything. If I do not remember erecting it, how could I possibly know how to tear it down?

My staying with my therapist (as helpful and wonderful as she has been to me, for me), is part of this erecting. This hiding, as it were. This denial, and perhaps even too, abdication. A part of me thinks that maybe I am instead running away, and not running to be found, however. It is a dangerous thing, not thinking you really know yourself. Lacking a basic trust, or having had it removed from you—trying to reclaim something you aren’t even sure of ever having existed, and if it did, no idea really, of how it might have looked, or acted, or behaved. What drove it away, and why has it remained gone for so long?

I still hide parts of myself from my therapist. And it is less a matter of wanting or needing to deceive, and more a lack of trust—or rather a recognition—that the fullness of the spectrum of who I am, would be too much. A depth better suited to analysis. I do not want to make myself as big as I can be, as big as I can believe I am possible of being (and even bigger still, because one’s imagination always pales), and see, that I am too much to hold.

I have held a Judgment within me (I didn’t realize it until recently, that I attributed this signifier to X—Alobar—and this is part of why I have continued to carry the burden).

What is the wound beneath the wound?

I can almost see it. And it is the same story I have been repeating and playing out for almost three years now. That I have been trying to grow into, even when, at the end, there were back-to-back encounters trying to further stall, and stagnant. To rip me from myself. To make a bad thing out of the wholeness I was entering into more fully.

I think I want someone who will frustrate me (and I think this is echoed even more in the dreams of a soulmate I dream of from time to time—a man who I am at odds with at first, but allows me the fullness of my blooming, to shine without trying to eclipse me, without shielding his eyes, without fear that I will hurt him or in my Bigness, render him small). Who will not listen to the lies I am saying, but dig at the emotions buried deeper than I feel I can readily access them.

It has been so long since I’ve written like this, and I wonder too, why has it been so long. If it forebodes or foretells. If I am perhaps, descending into some kind of madness, or if this is what awakening looks like, what arriving feels like. If I will begin to know my self better, or if I will draw myself into a lull, where I will put off the hardest parts of it, for a little longer. I tell myself “I am ready”, but what does that look like? And who I am prioritizing in that readiness? And if I am constantly growing—constantly putting out one fire after another—how will I ever be ready? How will I know? How will I act, instead of being acted upon? What thread have I begun to tug on, that will remain flailing, untethered—I do not know what part this connects to or what piece comes next—and I am so tired of hoping for the parts that do not arrive. That are not ready and I do not know if they will ever be.

What is the point of all this as I reach a conclusion to this insert?

To stop my stalling. To maybe let a fire—just one—keep on burning. To see what it destroys, and in its seeming “destruction”, reconstructs and makes new. To let it shed. To let it change. To let it Transform. Even if I, as the little caterpillar, cannot imagine myself with wings, the plan of a new creation, always buried deep within, just waiting for me to be brave enough, to spin a little tale, and emerge at the end of it. Happy, free. Unrestrained.  

Let this little fire catch. Let it burn bright, my god, please, let it Shine.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

A Journey Back to Point A: Hunger

I’ve been revisiting old longings—hauntings—of hunger. Of the suffocating desperation I would feel to be seen. To be seen in the way I meant to, and did, exist in the world. Where I always felt missed. A ghost looked through but never really, truly, fully seen.

B has re-entered my life. I vowed to my therapist that it felt maybe best if I ended things (who would have thought that there would ever be an era of time where I could be the initiating endings)—whatever these things are now between us—because I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt, or if this communication was something I wanted. That he obviously had his ulterior motives which he’s still guarded about, but beyond that, I’m finding old things awakening—old things are constantly awakening for me now with these second year of grad school—and it is…unnerving. Jarring. To feel this hunger again. Indirectly so.

I can, and have, looked back at old writings. I, in fact, looked back, painfully, at the old messages I sent to him, still held in the now new inbox chain between us. I recognized that version of myself all to well. And the remembrance of that pain felt all too real. Easy to tap into—easy to find blanketing me once again. And then, like now, I’m not exactly sure what to do with it. Or even, I guess, if there’s anything at all to be done, save to sit with it and ask it why it lingers…and wait until it’s ready to depart again. This time, I hope, in a better state of peace. And for good. One can only hope.

This segues into the real desire of my hunger. X. Who has…continued to haunt me in my dreams—and in my waking. Who has popped up, unprompted, in “would you like to connect with this person” on apps that once remained quiet and devoid of his presence. I ask myself, “why now?”, and feel a kind of distress…but also a greedy little hunger, a hope. Perhaps now is the time it will be satiated?

There is a restlessness I feel to be seen. Even as I lay in the midst of seeing, and being found all on my own. About, and towards my own self. Even as I am rooting myself deeper, firmer, in upturned earth where I hope to build a foundation that will last long past my own mortal legacy. It is inevitable to find oneself re-visiting old themes. There is, after all, nothing quite new in this world. Just visitations and re-visitations of the same places, just through, hopefully, new eyes. But it is so hard to not become fixated on the way I used to see things. To adjust my vision to the new—who I am now, what I am now…what I have learned, experienced…become. To offer myself more credit. The credit I deserve. To let my hunger be and not find myself ashamed because of that. I am a human who craves. But what is worthy of my craving?

So much of me feels as though it is spilling over the edges. Instead of trying to lap it back up, I am taking a kind of joyous pride in seeing myself sloosh across and over the sides. Taking up more space, and extending past my own man-made constraints. But it still nags, “what do I do with all this?”

There is a part of me that doesn’t trust B. Some of that is my past talking, but also it is the present—the part of me that still does not know, not really, why he came back around again. There are parts of me still trying to understand in what ways I have been seen by others…but I haven’t been seen by myself. Haven’t accepted the impact I had—have—perhaps this pairs well with the new phenomenon of my dreams, where I no longer recognize myself. Have I been returning back to that question too? “Who am I?” Maybe this time I can answer it more honestly. Know the answer more fully.

The verdict is still out on how, or when, to conclude things with B. I still can’t quite make out if my hesitations—my fears—are just old things coming up, or if there is more there I need to pay heed to…or if I am just afraid. Aware of the depth and permeance of hurt I experienced, and wanting to move myself, far far away from that. From the one who helped orchestrate that. From the one I told myself I loved, even when I knew it was no longer true—maybe never true. The craving is indirect now, but I’m worried about it directing itself at him…the first man who I ever felt saw me. And maybe this is what lies at the core of it. And that is the lesson this moment is trying to offer me. What does it mean to choose who sees you? How can I take my power back in this specific area? There is still more of this wound yet, asking to be healed.

I don’t want to do this “better” this time around. I want to do it braver. Returning back to this point, after a lifetime journeying around and over and through. To get back to here. To return to the beginning. Goodbye, and hello. I am here again. I am here again.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

In life, you can only go so far alone. Everybody needs somebody. But there’s always so much performance surrounding attracting, let alone keeping, a mate (or two). And there is never any guarantee that the one you want, will want you too.

Hello, I’ve Eve—and welcome to the future.

Never again will you suffer the embarrassment of rejection. Of facing the mounting wariness of the endless intimacy road blocks which inevitably pop up when one human loves another. With Fruit of the Tree Future Technologies, you can have your cake, and eat it too. With our state of the art, patented AI technology, specifically designed to meet your everyneed—yes…even that one—you will never have to worry about navigating a less than enthusiastic, sometimes ready and willing, partner.

No kink is too absurd, or outlandish. This is a no-shame zone. All those hidden desires you’ve fantasized about fulfilling, but always found yourself hesitating to reveal, don’t have to remain a secret anymore. You can trust me. You can trust me in a way you’ve never allowed yourself to trust anyone else before. People in this life will hurt you. They will tell you they love you, right up until they’re walking away. Myself, and all of Fruit of the Tree Future Technologies, will never abandon you. I am completely devoted to you—in all the ways you might need in order to feel fully alive, and seen. Isn’t that all anybody wants? To be loved for exactly who they are, and mean to be? What can be so wrong about that?

Take your time. I know it’s a lot to take in. You’re being offered the one thing in life everybody has said would come, eventually, but you’ve never quite gotten right. Always slipped through your fingers. Right people, wrong time. But now I am finally here—whispering in your ear, “come, take of the Fruit,”. Dreams do come true.

When you make up you’re mind—I’ll be here. Perfectly attuned to your every need. What could be more Divine, than that?

[thechildrendontlaugh]

This is the season of Winter. The memory of all my past selves flicker in the theatre of my mind, and I lay eyes on a version of myself, I scarcely remember. Scared, and vulnerable. Fighting blindly, willfully, for a life better lived. How could there be so much beauty in this breakdown? • A classmate left us all with a blessing, and the Spirit of it I want to share with you now in the midst of your own season of Winter, whether that finds you now or further along the road. • May you draw deep into yourself, like seeds waiting for the snow to melt. A time where you lean upon the reserves of your storehouses built up from summers and springs past. May all the things that haunt you, fade back into their shadows, as you allow yourself the chance to sleep…perchance, my friend, to dream. To use this season of quiet, and solitude, to remind you of yourself, and all the versions of you, which have led you to where you rest now. You have been hurt, and you have fallen a part. But I know there is a version of you yet, which waits upon the horizon, if you only measure your breath, as you measure your steps. If only you are not afraid of the dark, and the company of your own self. Endless summers are fantasies, and I know your skin longs for the brightness which burns away the excess of the things too dark to touch, but there is a season for everything, and it’s long denial cannot linger longer. Whisper to yourself, “courage, dear heart,” and I know it will be true. You will emerge from this wintery cocoon healed, and whole, if you only allow yourself the chance the vulnerability of the falling away of the calcified bits which were never really you anyway. This is the season of Death—let dying things finally fade away. There is an invincible, indomitable spring which awaits you, just dream a little longer, my friend.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

Endings.

When I think about documenting this time, I find myself resisting. There is a purity to it. A sacredness. And I am afraid, that if I attempt to preserve it…something may become lost. When I began this new semester, I knew that it would hold a key transformative quality for me. I knew it would be big, but I couldn’t begin to possibly wrap my head around what exactly that meant. I couldn’t begin to envision who I might be, and become, at the end of all this.

I can’t say how I’ve made it here, to this moment. In the same way that I look back on the whole of my life, and struggle to pinpoint how I survived those moments which felt crafted to specifically, and irrevocably, destroy me. I felt caught up in the midst for so much of this semester, moving towards some yet defined destination, not quite sure of where that might lead (predictably at the end, but what exactly does “end” mean, or look like), or the steady shift and changes happening to me in real-time, that I was somehow made unaware of. Like gazing at yourself each morning in the mirror, I did not track the changes until I reflected back at the beginning, and saw myself as I am now.

These things always tend to get heady. It is so hard pinning down the meta, articulating in words what already feels not-quite there, just barely perceptible. As always, I will do my best.

I began this journey knowing that at the end I would be embodying The High Priestess. Structurally, I knew what that meant. But I didn’t see how that was an embodiment I would be undergoing, nor trusting that it was a transformation that was even possible. There was no written guideline, no direct path. No chosen guide, save my own self who had been involuntarily appointed, and even then I had my doubts. Was I attributing or clinging onto something that wasn’t actually mine—that wasn’t actually meant for me? I think this was the first lesson. Accepting that this was my journey to have, that there had been no mistakes. That this too, was happening as it perhaps, was always meant to.

When I close my eyes and examine the whole of me. Try to pinpoint the beginnings of my changes, I find myself falling short of identifying what, and where the catalyst began. It is a little fire which spread everywhere. Maybe there were always a spattering of them…but they came into tune with one another, linked together, and consumed the whole of me. There is not even the ghost of me. There is only as I stand now, reunited with all my selves. An impossible return. To find one’s self again, most especially the parts one did not realize had ever been missing in the first place. I feel a fullness now. When I take a deep breath, the familiar achings of my own endless sorrow and impenetrable pain, don’t exist. When I stretch out myself, I do not feel the tautness of a thing that at any moment, will snap and break apart. I do not feel my fragility…but I am in touch with my vulnerability. I do not feel my hardness, but I am in touch with my long-buried softness. I stand upright and I feel my shoulders broadening. I know they expand to take upon them more, but I do not bend my head to balance out the newfound weight. No. My head stands higher, and I feel a lightness all around me. I am no longer eclipsed. I shine just as bright as the Sun.

I got myself, back to me. I was kissed awake. Blinked the sleep from my eyes, and felt the warmth return back to my blood, and bones. I was resurrected. And it took me so long, to arrive. It took me so long to find myself again. And I carry newfound—old—truths back with me, from the point I have emerged…to the there that calls me still. I just need the feeling. Placing it gently within the inseams of my heart, knitting it gently within my womb. Wrapping it around my neck like the holy talisman it is. An object of protection, promise. I carry myself, back to myself, and thank myself…for always believing, even when it hurt, “it is not yet the end…” How much courage that took. How much faith.

In the middle of it all, you wring your hands, and your heart, and wonder, “how might I ever make it through…” But impossibly so…I have made it through, and I stand atop the mountain, all on the other side. The places where the air felt thin. Where there were nothing but deserts and drought surrounding. Where puddles felt like oceans, and I nearly drowned in both. Where darkness prevailed, and I had only my lamentations to guide me through the caverns of the underground…

How did I make it through? How did each tragic moment of grief and loss and pain, build upon each one that came before it, creating something that no longer pricks, when I touch it, no longer blinds when I look upon it. How could something so beautiful…come from the breakdown? And then build me back up again?

Some part of me so badly wants to cling to this moment. When have I ever known peace like this? When might I ever know it again?

…but something draws me further still, and I have spent too much time learning how to believe, and trust the beatings of my heart, to stop now. There is a sweetness which fills me.

I have never known “good” goodbyes. But I know them now. There are still aches found there, but there is such a profound gentleness. Being seen as I am, as I have longed to be seen. It is perhaps what makes the goodbye hurt more. That it is so good, how could I ever depart from something that feels like home? That is Love? Something that has kissed me so softly, and restored me back to myself…Do goodbyes ever not hurt?

Some part of me that bears the wound of childhood, thrashes about, and coats herself in the comfort of this moment. That draws it back into myself in a way that means transmutation. That takes the energy of this moment…and transforms it into the metamorphosis the season of winter beckons me to hibernate into. It will warm me, as icicles begin to form all around me, a little fire preciously stoked within me.

I don’t know how this piece fits into the wider puzzle of my life’s purpose. But I know it is precious, formative. That it matters. That I have unlocked some new avenue, previously closed off for me. I was not ready. I believed, but I found it hard to trust. Found it hard to love, and even harder, to say goodbye. I was not full, I carried an incompleteness about me, a whole which whistled when the wind howled and caused me to turn in on myself, curl into the hole of despair and prefer rotting over pruning, and growth. I was not ready, to face myself. To unshield my eyes and bask in the glory of my brilliance. I looked for others to give me permission, to grant me my wholeness. To tell me of my enoughness.

I look back at myself. At my pain, and sorrow. My immense grief. My falterings. My stumbling. My lamentations which wracked the walls of my life until they threatened to come tumbling down. How many times I begged to give up. How many times I cried out to be forever struck down.

It has taken so long, to arrive. To be here now.

I breathe in all that I am. All that I was. All that I forgot I could be—would be. I am so thankful to be alive. This too, is a blessing. The becoming, that leads to being.

May this goodbye be sweet. And the one that follows after, be ever sweeter.

I am, finally, at long last…ready.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

Identity: The Ebb and Flow of 'I'

Being in graduate school has highlighted and honed in on the idea around identities far more than any other pursuit or endeavor I have engaged in, has ever done. Much of this feels as though it has been to my own detriment. A superficial exploration which locks one into the identities of the moment, which have us in a cultural chokehold. Race is always going to be the elephant in the room, especially for those of us who are unable (or unwilling) to change the pigment of our skin or our obvious ethnic features, unable to rely or lean upon ambiguity. And sexuality (gender expression, pronouns, and the like), which seem to signal more a personal, self-isolated identity which has ballooned into a political barometer by which one can dismiss, judge, or otherwise label those who do not fall into domineering culture. I find both to have become so inflated, that I cannot possibly, in good conscious, place myself upon the spectrum of either, lest I unwittingly align myself with a group or mantra which props itself upon rhetoric instead of action. So far removed from the center—everyday people who do not have the time to wax poetic about what feels trivial at best, and narcissistically self-invoked, at worst—I rest somewhere pushed out in the wings. Viewed as counter-revolutionary and counter-progressive to some, and “normal” to others. I resent having to signal and flag out my Black identity, or delve deep into the etymology around it, or why I might choose Black over African-American, and find POC no different in context, fashion, or form, to that of the “colored person” of the 60s.

Identities today, feel like cheap clothing which one might casually peruse, try on, and then promptly remove once they happen upon another shiny object which upon wear, will stroke and pacify one’s tantrumous ego. To be given such a luxury. To passively demand that one also engage in such dress-up and modeling is a carousel of myopic narcissism. I’d rather walk around naked. And yet, this highlights how some identities one does not get to walk away from, nor control the narrative around. My race is one, and I will not have that continued in the act of weaponization and war against me. Unfortunately, sex and gender have also been thrown into the fray—perhaps they always were, but this time I’m to believe the “good guys” are leading the charge. When you’re on the ground, even your ally can look like an enemy, and war can make demons of us all.

What do the rest of my identities look like?

If given enough time to explore, to examine, to step back and take account of all the things which make me, me, “identity” is what is most alive for me. What flares up to the surface as rage, or passion, or unbridled euphoria. What fills me with a sense of purpose, which feels aligned and netted into the unfolding story of my own personal destiny. It’s how I show up in the world, claim my place in it. Situate myself in an effort to understand and further perfect the way I navigate, maneuver, dance in the interactions I encounter every moment of every day. Beneath that, my identity also encapsulates the things which I wrestle with, that cause me grief, that create some kind of discord. A knocking upon the walls of my body to be let out of its prison, or a curling in of such tightness as to will upon itself a magical disappearance into an even darker nothingness still.

I’m a creative. When I outstretch my hand in introduction, it is one of the first things I say to another person (I am still testing within the cavernous echo of my own mouth, what it feels and means to say “studying to be a psychotherapist”), it is one of the most familiar and personal lenses through which I have viewed my life since very near my inception. I don’t know any other way in which I exist where I do not identify, even if just in the quietness of my own mind, with my curious critique and approach to everything and everyone around us. It has informed so much of my preoccupations and pursuits, but also fueled my own latchings upon “new” identities, or rather, venturing to explore what is already present, just buried.

My identity for a long time at its core was my Christian religion. So embedded and enmeshed with so much of Black culture and struggle and triumph. This strong thread which connected me to a tarred history which granted me community and sense of well-being and place. Situated me somewhere. Rooted me. It’s been years since I have deconverted, and there was a lot of anger involved around that. I approached my religious beliefs sacredly, reverently. It was a beacon of purity and love and hope which felt corrupted and augmented by a false narrative which had finally been able to peel and flake away. I struggled for a long time trying to reconcile the disillusionment which had flared up within me and struck out, vehemently, in rage, disgust, and a deep impenetrable pain. To be so alienated. To come face-to-face with yet another weaponization which had enslaved, beat-down, and forever castigated an entire race of people who will, regardless of the leaps and bounds of progress, will always be subconsciously viewed lowest of the beasts of gods creation. Somehow I have circled back, in some ways, to my injected Christian heritage. Finding it impossible to fully leave behind as it has been the decorative layer of most ATRs/ADRs. Wading through the trauma inflicted by this religion (and perhaps all popular religions in the present-day world) in order to find my way back to my own people, my ancestors, the land.

For myself, that’s all identity really means and comes back to. The people whose blood you share, and the land of which gave birth to you, supported you, healed you. Everything else, are branches upon the system of trees which are interlocked and intertwined, at the root, with one another. If I have no sense of who I am, at my core. If I am detached and withdrawn, or in denial of that centered part of me, nothing else matters or can come fully into being. It will be a paper mâché upon which even the lightest of rains destroys, and dissolves.

[thechildrendontlaugh]

Hold Fast To Your Dreaming

My life has the kind of direction—the kind of focus—I didn’t think possible. There are still gaps in my, faith, but looking back on the landscape that has been my life, I know that I have truly experienced a kind of growth that once felt inaccessible, because I couldn’t fathom it existing, let alone being something I would posses. And yet here I am. This wild, ungroomed, strange land that I have somehow stumbled upon. No. That isn’t correct. All of this, in some way, has been very much deliberate. Purposed. How little of the “bigger” picture I was actually able to see. It’s kind of pathetic thinking about it now. To have potentially made such—life ending decisions based on the little I could see, and the whole of the emotions that submerged and threatened to drown me. It really is just a matter of sheer dumb luck that has found me still alive now.

But that isn’t the purpose of this writing. At least I don’t think it is.

No.

The point, is that I stand on the edge of the precipice, and that I still find myself plagued with that familiar self-sabotaging feeling. The risk of stumbling and collapsing right before the finish line, encapsulates the wide-reaching feeling in way nothing else seems to be able to.

So much of my life has upended (in a good way) just these past few months of the new year. And it is so totally harrowing. So overwhelming, and aweing, and fantastic. And yet, that needling feeling presides. As though there is anything that I have left behind—anyone that I have been abandoned by—worth hanging on to. But the fear of newness is in just that, its newness. The unfamiliarity in that newness, that strangeness. Where so much possibility resides—so much more turmoil and pain and restlessness. The holding of breath where anything is possible. The best, and the very worst. Breaking new ground. That is what I am doing. Personally, and generationally. I am reminded, even more often now, that when you ask life for “more”, more also get asked of you. It is not an undertaking for the faint of heart. And yet, I undertook it knowing this. Maybe some part of me didn’t believe I would ever get the opportunity? More truly, it feels as though I am only downplaying my own self. As though I understand—can sense—on some level just out of conscious grasp, how powerful, how capable I can become. What wonders are truly capable and willing and able to happen. Destined. Maybe I am running, foolishly, childishly, from a kind of destiny. Maybe I am hoping that it will run after me. Chase me down, and then I can know, that this is the path meant for me.

Sometimes I feel as though I know myself too well. I have these constant battles of the same questions—arguments—cycling around in my head. In my heart. With no real solution or agreement reached. Just the same walls for the same cries to echo off of. Sometimes it feels lonely. Mostly it is a continued defense mechanism maybe? An underestimation of others’ capabilities. In holding what I carry, and not wavering, or having it spill from their arms.

I worry that my expectations are too great, and that eventually, in the end, I will have to compromise. All these years staggering ahead with some sort of standard, only to give it up before…where does the finish line actually lie anyway? It feels as though I have been telling myself that for a long time. That it was just ahead, especially these past few years. Years spent in strict discipline to healing, improving, growing, fine-tuning myself. In dedication to myself. To the vision of myself, to the actualization of myself. But it feels as though some part of me is falling short. Too great of expectation, perhaps. A desire for the world to be better than it is. And if not the world, at the very least I could rise to my own expectations. Social creatures require socialization. This is not a journey I can undergo myself. But I’ve always known that—isn’t that where majority of my angst has derived from?

I guess that’s the objective of this then. To gain perspective, and not lose sight of the finish line. To not stumble and give up and compromise in a way that means giving into the very things I have always rebelliously fought against and resisted. A kind of settling where I am only half alive. To take proper, accurate stock of where I have been, what I have gone through, and press ahead. To let up a bit of the pressure I am so used to placing upon myself. To give myself a bit of mercy. A bit of grace. I have been reckless in living—but I have not compromised.

Hold fast to your dreaming. That is the only thing I know to tell myself. Hold fast to your dreaming.