Ever

"I just wanna... 
Show you how much I appreciate you.
Wanna show you how much I'm dedicated to you.
Wanna show you how much I will forever be true.
Wanna show you how much you got your girl feelin' good.
Wanna show you how much, how much you're understood.
Wanna show you how much, I value what you say.
Not only are you loyal, you're patient with me babe.
Wanna show you how much, I really care about your heart.
I wanna show ya how much, I hate being apart.
Show ya, show ya, show ya til you're through with me.
I wanna keep it how it is, so you can never say how it used to be"
-B, "Dance For You"


How it used to be.
YOU...are nothing like it used to be.
For YOU are nothing that I'm used to.
Nothing like that which I'd normalized as normal.
Each previous moment is challenged by the next.
I sit in awe of the simplicity. 
Of you. Of me. Of you and me....in this....together.
Here we are.
Together.
Until whenever. 
I can't think of much else that is better.
Ho-rah! 

The Zombies are Coming, the Zombies are Coming!

My brain. MY brain. It strains to regain what once I could claim. Sanity and peace and non-existent thoughts. I have been derailed and what’s more, I did it of my own accord. I DIDN’t choose it, per say, but it chose to let me choose it. It makes as much sense as it should. So here I am again, back to myself. It seems I hadn’t ventured very far and yet I can feel the distance. And closeness. To you. The nearness and newness of you. For do I not feel weakness and fear? Indeed, it is there as it always has been and will be. Necessary like wrenches and foreign like spreads of chocolate. Here I am…naked and exposed to the world. I own it as I know it to be. The truth. MY truth. The only kind I could speak or hope could transpire. And I find myself to not be afraid of that, this truth, because I stare it down eye-to-eye and make it my own. No matter the challenge or outcome or loss. Cause I can lose you, but cannot lose me. This wonderful person I’ve found. Myself. As I always knew I could be. You elevate me to see the coolest and realest version I could ever aspire to be. So you’ll stay as you and I’ll stay as me, and the rest….well, we shall see.

The Wind....blows.

I am numbed. Somehow I’m not quite as I’d imagined myself to be. I am a diluted version of the greatness and hysteria that resides within. Within I am without. On and on the road does go, but somewhere along the line I had to stop running. The breath could no longer be harnessed within these overexerted lungs. These words no longer hold sway and I know not where it is I should lay. In my own arms I am alive and well. Funny how I once thought I knew you so very, very well. Indeed, I do. But, then again, I never did and your silence bites at me like frost. This heart burns as much from tomatoes as it does from the distance between. And the hardest part is knowing that you are doing all you can do and nothing you could not. Only have I the power to adjust the sails I call my own. The wind blows and blows and blows us away from where we once felt so strong. I believed it and knew it and felt it deep in my every bone and very being. That it was you. Just you. For now it is me. Just me. As it always should have been. As I dedicate myself to whatever will be, I can only hope that you leave a piece of you…for me.

Lessons in Diving

Aids me as it abets me.
Saves me and then negates me.
It seems to be not as it should.
For it does not act as I hoped it would.
Where is this peace of which I am told?
Is it wrong of me to act quite so bold?
You love me even when I do not know.
Yet you seem not to act as if it were so.

The time is now, my dear.
For so quickly could it disappear.
And now as I wish you near.
I see it all so very crystal clear.
Your fear...is...my fear.

If you dive, I dive.
As we do to feel alive.
A dream of it, so strong.
As if in an impossible song.
Unimpressive or not.
This, my love, is all we've got.

For being NOThing like you're used to.

"Perfect.

Just as you are."

They told me so. It must be true, I deduced. 

I believed it insofar as they needed me to. 

They. They. They. Them.

And me? Me? And of ME? 

Exiled to the edges of my conscious depths of thoughts. An endless abyss of destructive concepts.

You have everything you need. Within you.

It moves without you. It will be oh-oh-oVER. In a FLASH. IT. Life. IT. it. 

Pull on those bootstraps, they continue. 

I wouldn't. Couldn't. Shouldn't. 

And....today? Indeed, a new day IS to-day. 

For many do I look upon reflections with adoration and appreciation.

For taking the many winding and prolonged journeys.

For having the courage. The beauty. The drive. 

      to refuse that which I refuse.

      to question all that needs questioning. 

      to settle with nothing less than all that is not nothing.

And now the mission reveals itself.

To refuse to settle for anything that generates many questions. Too many questions.

Of "what ifs" and "yeah, buts." 

What if the rationalizations remain, while the priorities merely remain absent?

What if the chips fall where they may and all that was absent was fear?

What if I allow myself to be....perfectly imperfect me? 

What if there were no more "what ifs"?

What IF that day IS to-day??

Indeed, it is. 

...before the dawn.

"So miss him," she wrote. 

I repeat the line over and over and over, demanding perspective and simplistic appreciation.
Settling with some notion of happiness in occurrence, rather than sadness in the means to this end. 

The start? The end? The start? The....end?

Yes. Yes. Yes. YES.

It starts as it ends. 

Ends as it starts. 

My heart starts to recognize it's own parts. 

You revived me as I strive(d) to be whatever I thought you needed me to be.

And alas, I need not you as you need not me.
 I need me.
As me.
Exactly...me. 

Toss the Maps

"This is what it means to be an adventurer in our day: to give up creative comforts of the mind, to realize the possibilities of the imagination. Because everything around us says no you cannot do this, you cannot live without that, nothing is useful unless it's in service to money, to gain, to stability.

The adventurer gives into tides of chaos, trusts the world to support her--and in doing so turns her back on the fear and obedience she has been taught. She rejects the indoctrination of impossibility.

My adventure is a struggle for freedom."

-Off the Map 

And I read this and was reached. By this book I didn't even see coming. 

And I realize it: I have the makings of an adventurer. Hell....I AM an adventurer. I might not be off to Prague, but here I am....exploring my own reality, my own truth, my very makings. Hardly nothing about this pursuit is of comfort, except in the chaos of knowing I am on and off to the better things that come with challenging your deepest held beliefs and understandings of this life.

And I realize this, too: I am ever seeking fellow adventurers. 

It is why I sometimes can't shake this overwhelming disinterest in those who fail to challenge themselves. To strive for something they can't even comprehend. Just that they are displeased and want to know....WHY? For it is the challenge of this discomfort and discontentment that spins this world of ours 'round and 'round and 'round and forever 'round. Or rather that it makes as much sense of the spinning as is possible or necessary.

I am realizing my own meaning of faith. I used to think I had none because my Sundays were spent elsewhere. I was wrong and I continue to be wrong. And for every wrong I make so very many rights. Sometimes the wrongs feel so right, but maybe a year or two on. And I have it to spare. Because time is of no importance, really. Because surely it's not what you're doing or how long it takes....it's HOW you do it. 

I choose positive outlooks. I choose unknown destinations and chaotic moments. And connections. The realist of REAL real real connections. The kind that take your breath away and implore you to think: "Holy shit, this IS what it's about. Right here. Right now. This person. This place. This moment. This is life and I want to live to know all of it."