On Connection, and Reaching: My Hypocrisy

“This is something I wrote out, because--well.  Sometimes I'm pretty crappy at reaching out to you first... I get caught up in stuff, and I think--despite how important you are to me--you might feel left in the lurch. 

I. struggle. when I feel left.  by people that matter.  So I wrote this out, and was curious if you might relate... and if so, what I can do to chase these feelings away...

'When I was little, sometimes I would occupy myself with teasing my older brother--more for attention and for interaction than anything else.  However, if my dad saw us, he would say to my older brother in a somewhat joking fashion, "Just hit him, and then he'll get the idea and stop." 

And.  I remember how such phrases made me feel less than human so quickly.  It's odd, the strength of those phrases.  I knew at the time and know now that my dad didn't mean anything damaging by them.  But I remember feeling like a fly that should be batted away by a fly swatter till it left.

I still feel like that, sometimes.  Maybe it's something a lot of us feel--insecure about our being wanted, or valued in a relationship.

... whenever I have to call out to someone several times, and they seem busy or preoccupied, I feel like that little boy again.  Like something unfit for interacting with other people.  Something that should be batted away till it dies, or leaves.  And that feeling--it's a lie, I think--I know.  It's a lie.  Why does my heart still feel like it's true so quickly, when someone I care about seems to not have time for me...' "

Bodies

Bodies

March 20, 2014

I felt a body die this night

It wasn’t glamorous,

Nor a sacred rite.

Just a threaded pulse that leapt, then waned,

A few twitches of muscle, a breath retained,

Then respite.

My fingers felt a pulse disappear

Then turn back to tempt hearts

of those austere.

But the man departed, away, long ago was gone

Don’t hope his body lingers on--

For account of your fears.

My hands felt ribs that broke for blows,

To squish a piece of meat enclosed,

“Stay, you Leaving, stay here in limbo.”

But I did not observe this body’s man, nor his drift beyond my sight;

I only watched his body die, to follow him to humanity’s certain night...

The way that empty bodies go.

The way that empty bodies go.

Hating Windows.

I wish I had a catchy opening for this entry.  A joke perhaps, or witty, lyrical opening that would play into the topic at hand.  However, the topic is one that seems to dwell on the other side of the tracks from witty comments and zesty experiences, for I am struggling with life, and it seems anything but witty, majestic, or worthwhile.

Seems that we all want our lives to mean something.  I don't feel like mine is meaning much right now.  I have this feeling often, actually--as if I'm on the edge of arriving at a period of time where I'll be able to invest myself into the right things, into the people that surround me.  And then, that time actually happens.  The period for which I've been hoping meanders into the present.  I make it through the "rough patch" of now to arrive at the green pastures of the other side of the fence.  Oh, glory that is mine over the potential had in that crossing! -- potential derived from care for the future, and its infinite openness for beauty and growth and goodness and progression. For life; zest; the feeling of grass between your toes and the sun on your back and the wind, whispering secrets through your hair as you delve into the richness of life.  So I flop into the grass at my feet, weary from toil and excited to enjoy the green bits that I have previously been sad-pressed to watched wander by--wander by to leave me behind.  In those times of their leaving, I was left with only the imagined, the dreamt of, the potential of life beyond the rough, when I wouldn't lack for time to experience those little green life bits.  "And now I can... "  And so I flop onto my back.  And I'm shocked, for it seems the grass immediately surrounding me has faded a few shades of green.  Why, you might ask--why did the grass fade?  And I'd be a bit hard pressed to tell you.  Perhaps it's a lack of energy affecting my sight, or my quandary over the difficult dichotomy between investing time in self-enrichment or relationships; a greater "wasting of time" on the daily tasks that have piled high, or perhaps into those neglected "meaning bits"/relationships by which I say my day has value, or perhaps a fall into the simple, fleeting joys of kicking back and watching a TV show, or ______________ .

It seems the puzzle of life is far from coherent image of purpose and depth and joys, even upon neutralizing the complicating pixilation caused by frustrations and challenges and pains.  Nope.  It's just a nauseating shamble of pieces of wrong sizes and incompatible shapes, and my head begins to throb as I search for each piece's proper place.  I'm discouraged, not enlivened, by life.