grace in the wilderness @wildegratia - Tumblr Blog

Posts

change, heal, save. the largeness of words like sunbeams touching the seemingly endless corridor dust on dusk and there was evening, and then a new day. unfolding tensions in the square of night to once again, glancing on your face in a screen your face behind plastic your face under varnished wood i imagine your face intimate with soil and must. to experience the ache of a void is to avoid the large expanse of the deep hovering spirit rest upon my shoulders and whisper ‘beloved’.

Dear pa,

I wanted to write a letter to you initially because i was and sometimes am angry. I see you trying to hard to please us, yet how is it possible that you still anger us, me. I realise i had a heart of ungratefulness and gracelessness. I wish that when i was a child, you cared enough to sit with me, talk to me, tell me I’m beautiful and tell me you love me. When i grew older, i realise that you were never told any of this by your parents. I can’t blame you for not doing something you were never taught. I wish you would stop being so stubborn and doing things your way when its not really working. Yet i also see you jump hurdle after hurdle, humbly pushing through with that smile on your face. I wish i would stop being angry with you and see that you’re on my side. All i see is you wanting me to be on your side. I wish that your yeses mean yeses and nos mean no. You seek possibility but you don’t always have to do everything all the time. I know your parents gave you the gift and curse of independence. You thought maybe that’s how all children ought to be. I’m struggling to love you. I wish that you could have a do over so we could have more good memories to fall back on. Sometimes your children just want you to listen with interest. Really care what your children are saying. Stop assuming you know what’s best for them. This angers me the most. How can one listen when they have never been heard? Yet to have your children become the parent is something i struggle with. Why should i be the parent to fix your childhood? Its not my job. I realise letting others into your life to speak words of wisdom and truth isn’t such a bad thing. I don’t want to end up only listening to myself and noone else.

I don’t feel worthy,

An artist? No, far be it that i claim creativity as the deux ex machina of my life. I am a rambling, rolling bramble, thickets and thorns, all. Yet whatever little i bring, i sit, and i receive. I thank God that i am not saved by my merit because i have not put in effort for any. A gift is multiplied to feed many. By God’s grace i am. Not the world’s best artist, but with what i do, i do what i can to do. Maybe nobody will see it, a single person even reading my book twice and that is enough.

Grief

Grief to me is something foreign. My personal contact with grief dealt with through distancing, avoidance, numbing. Nobody talks about it. Nobody shares how they felt or taught each other that numbness is also a feeling. When my rabbit died, my father simply placed it in a freezer and dumped it the next morning. My mother runs away from it. When my neighbourhood cat died, my father and I spoke about how he looked so well just the day before. My mother said “don’t talk about these things”.

Something does leak out. “Did you see that moth?” on a certain date, a butterfly was seen to land at certain locations. Butterflies don’t usually enter the house. I’ve noticed black butterflies entering the house after a loved one’s body has been cremated, usually after reaching home. We want signs of an afterlife, of a soul that mattered. My mother dreams of her mother and sister. She shares these dreams with me, and weeps quietly after. It has been more than 3... or was it 4 years since their parting. I barely remember any of it except for my grandfather’s because I took photos. All i felt was numbness. I wonder if it would feel different if someone closer to me died. Everyone expects you to move on... to what?

Numbness pushed against grief. I don’t wish to think about it. As silly as it sounds, when the shrimps I bought died one by one, I was also going under in spirit. And when they all died, i refused to clean the tank for a week. I guess that’s what people do when things die? How early is too early? I told myself to give it a week. How late is late when the person or animal has died? One definition of complicated grief states that feelings of loss remain delibitating and don’t improve after a long period of time. Can grief ever be uncomplicated?

I cleared the tank a week later, and naturally, thoughts about how i couldn’t provide a better environment or that they died too soon drifted into my mind. When I look at the Nana plant, the only thing that survived, I can’t help but feel a twinge of .... guilt? Shame? Grief? Relief? The mind yearns to speak with the dead. Grief articles say it is normal and healthy to speak to the one who died. I don’t think this warrants a mental health concern. You know they aren’t here but in a sense, they still are. you wish they were alive but also not really. Something has changed, deeply, irrevocably. When someone dies, those around them are born again, of a sorrow known only to those who have grieved.

One day I know I will have to grieve hard, and I wish there would be joy stirred into the bitter cup. One day I would have to drink that cup myself, and I hope to be in the arms of Love.

Id rather drown in words than love you

And I say, “Oh, that i had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; yes i would wander far away; i would lodge in the wilderness; i would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.”

Until today I don’t think I’ve grown much. A little conversation with the brother is enough to trigger a deluge in me. I barely even try because each time i do it fucking wrecks the shit in me. I am not strong enough for this. Every single time. I want to leave, i want to leave i want to leave. And yet i cannot. I feel as though my life’s mission is to give back to this family because i owe my parents too much. Can this be called love? If there were a miracle i would want to either disappear, or have my brother normal like everyone else. Until today, my mother’s cursed narrative has not lifted. Give me a reason to try again. Give me a reason to not take this personally. I bury myself in theory so i could help myself feel better. Because it hurts too much and i am not brave enough, not loving enough. I’m never enough. Is this weak enough for you, God?

Chasing some stupid fantasy that will never come to fruition. I know how it is, but its the only stroke i know. I’m not even angry at God. I’ve dug myself this pit named Pity. I’ve not felt like this in a while. Work is a slump now because I’ve not overcome this part of my life. I think i know what i need, but I’m just done. There were things to look for when i was younger but i feel more trapped than ever reaching 30 years old. How many more? 5,10,50? Its increasingly unbearable because I’m trying so hard to live for myself.

If you could talk

I become redundant

This relationship, helper - helped - help

No one asked for this

The madness of kings and queens and inbetweens, fall hard

Fall deep

I am only as close to you as you make no sounds, clots draining movement and control out of your body

We make guesses, you relent

I thought art spoke without words, but i found myself tripping over the marks you made over and over and over l

To meet our shadows before we turn into Hydes

I wonder if we were made with two hands to hold wildly different things, one on each hand

How opposites could be held together by the same body, like volcanoes that lay dormant

I do not want health, boundaries... how does one keep a seed of thought locked for so many years

Or, what if only by experiencing does one realise what they truly want?

Chaos feels more like home, and i am not willing to step out of it

What is salvation, if i do not believe, or step into the light? I cannot blame the sun for not shining when my house has no windows

I am running, scissors in both hands, at myself

xianzhong

Is it so selfish to desire safety? Even if morality supersedes desire? Is it better to rent or to own, even if owning means a lifetime rental for a 99-year lease?

Can one live else where and still claim to love their family? They say relationships require maintenance. Would my mother turn her face away from me because I chose to live apart for the next 2,5,10 years?

Do I deny myself of desire, or as they say, deny myself, for the sake of the safety of others around me for some dimming vision of a coming kingdom that only old folks claim to see, with their awakening spiritual eyes, of light, of a city paved in gold, of the legendary blazing man in white?

Can one be apart, and a part?

A graph ceases to be one without opposing axes.

They don’t know how it feels to be denied access to the very basic needs humans want, to feel safe, loved, to thrive. Yet I know the human heart is not to be trusted. I know that even if one does offer unconditional safety, it could be abused. A place without boundaries cannot be safe.

It seems like there is always a trade-off, for safety, for freedom. One axis against the other.

And yet, what you so carefully protect against, what I desire so much, are the very same. The dance upon shards of dirt and eggshells.

slow death by florescent lighting

If grace is an ocean

let me be so satisfied that an ocean overflows from me

The graciousness of uncertainty

Come love me outrageously

Don’t let the night take this weak fragile mess of a heart

Don’t pass me by

My hands, feet, heart have grown cold but with warmth like burning coals your love fell on me

Come love me outrageously

Don’t let me run again, don’t leave me be

Be loved,

Beloved

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

grace in the wilderness