I feel miserable
I feel like crap
I hurt you
The word sorry is a lump in my throat right now
I want to say it
but hadn't I promised you I would never say it again?
I wonder why I'm this way
I haven't been able to cry for months
But today in one instant my numb state has broken
I'm crying
I'm fucking crying
And it hurts so much
But I don't have the courage to face you
You, the one person who could hurt me
Hates me
Broken promises and destroyed friendships
That's all I cause
Goodbye to love
Goodbye to sense
Goodbye to life
Dammit why can't I write? I guess that was your forte anyways.
What Is Love
Every day, someone writes about love, talks about love, angry about love, even frightened of love. Love is a concept of entwining emotions we can neither physically see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, but it sure does know how to heighten a person’s senses and awareness when with someone they are attracted to.
When I was thinking about this, I remembered something I wrote a long time back. I dug around my stacks of papers and finally unearthed it.
I am no road scholar when it comes to love but over the years I have come to understand what you will read are only a few of the many principles love holds.
Consider this what you will. Conception. Perception. Perspective.
Enjoy.
************************************************************************************
What Is Love
Defining love, and its concept isn’t as easy as it sounds. Love is, has, and always will be the one word in the English language (or any language), that is defined by adjectives and adverbs laid onto paper, and words which roll off the tongue.
For countless centuries, “Love” has been a prime force of every novel written, be it romance, gothic, westerns, horror, drama, mystery, adventure, and comedy. Love has told the story of some of the greatest love relationships throughout history. From Adam and Eve to Jesus Christ. Cleopatra and Antony, to Romeo and Juliet.
But, in using words to describe love with such words as: beautiful, dear, darling, sweetheart, and of course, I love you. It isn’t the telling that defines love, rather more the showing; the expression of that love which becomes the main focus or central ingredient.
You can say, “I love you,” twenty-four hours a day, and it wouldn’t mean a thing if you cannot express yourself—and the ways are many.
A simple hug or smile, holding a hand, giving a card for no other reason than you care (and it shows what he/she means to you in doing so), sending/giving flowers, planning a getaway for a few days, sharing responsibilities, such as cleaning or painting a room or working on all that “stuff” in the attic. For men: cook for her for a change of pace, and don’t forget to put the toilet-seat down (and for as funny as that may seem, it isn’t funny to her), and put the cap back on the toothpaste when finished. In the long run, all it is doing is showing simple respect when due, in the form of love.
Being able to see your partner’s abilities and talents as a person is vital as it is important. Notice the little, as well as the bigger things during the course of the day. Ignorance may be bliss but being ignorant means too much is being missed. Again, respect what is done, how it was done, is another sign of love. It shows how much you value your partner, even when away from him/her.
Another way and this is important; is communication. Listen to what is being said, as well as what is not being said. Listen to problems or ideas. By hearing, listening, and not pretending; take a real interest in thoughts expressed, allows you to be even closer.
Yet, the reverse holds true as well. You can communicate without words. There is that certain look in the eye, or that curving smile. The way hands are held and fingers interlock. The playing around to have each other laugh, to stroking a cheek, to a simple short kiss. All of these things are a form of love … better known as understanding.
When deeply troubled by sadness, scared, confused, your partner or you, should be there to share the burden and help ease the pain and sadness, and perhaps even fear. There will always be times when the weight of any pain will be too heavy for one person to carry alone. That weight should be, has to be, carried by two people. This is love. This is also known as being a friend when a friend is needed most.
Physically, making love is perhaps one of the least forms to express love. No two people can make love around the clock the rest of their lives and survive on that love. Of course making love is the closest two people can be to express love, but it’s really a small slice of the pie in the relationship when you look at love on a larger scale.
And yet, making love is an internal act of expression. The art or act of love, must or should be pleasurable. That feeling where making love should feel never-ending (though it will and does) and go beyond forever. Both you and your partner should shudder with the most intense, satisfied feeling ever experienced. Complete fulfillment.
With fulfillment as with other things considered, we have to come back to the important issues: laughter, and communication. Laughter, because lovemaking should be fun as well as passionate (and not like a job you dread). Communication is a given, but when the conversation becomes one-sided, that is where love begins to fade as does the sun to darkness, or the moon to morning light. As with everything mentioned, tenderness needs, privately demands to be felt. Holding, touching one another as if to say, “I care deeply and will never let go.”
In a sense, love is like a general giving orders to his men. Each man plays an important part in what has to be done, otherwise, there is only failure. So goes the way of love.
Emotion, understanding, respect, trust, honor, truth, passion, communication, humor, thoughts, and friendship are a direct path leading to love.
Three aspects round this out. The heart holding all the feelings of expression, and the mind for realizing what is truly wanted. As long as you keep your mind straight and your heart true, there will always be love.
Were you to go blind, you can still see the person you love because you have your mind. If you could no longer speak, you can still feel the love because of the emotions you carry in your heart.
The third aspect to consider, is sacrifice.
If, or when you do fall out of love, don’t stand in the way of that person’s happiness. To do so, would put your own future happiness out of sight. Bitterness and hate chews away at a human soul and clouds thoughts. Hate is like a cancer. So is fear. They too can eat away at the very person you are until both physically and emotionally you destroy yourself. With love, comes pain, but the pain becomes a lesson learned.
But cast away hate, fear and pain. In or out of love, because of all that was shared, you should remain a friend when needed most.
This is the part that is hard to understand. Betrayal. Even when you have been cheated and lied to, once the love is over, if nothing else, erase the hate. The pain will take time to heal the inner you. But remove the hate, and possibly, over time, you could be simply a friend once more. Hard for many to do, but it is doable.
Call it human nature, but you do have feelings like everyone else. You breathe, bleed red, laugh and cry like anyone else. You need to be loved every bit as much as the next person.
If it is so wrong to feel this way and you already do, then I say, don’t change. If you have never felt this way, perhaps your need for a change starts now. Love is also accepting change.
Know what is important. The choice is yours alone to make.
Love is about making choices.
6/14/1995
************************************************************
(The first two lines of the poem in the picture, you cannot see)
I am not always right
I am not always here
The Day No One Cared What Year It Was Any Longer
In 2046, all the nations of the world gathered together to debate the end of all nuclear weapons and disband all military and only keep a national militia for emergency purposes for such things as natural disasters to aid fellow human beings. After many days that turned into weeks, an agreement was finally met and by the end of 2046, all armies, in all countries were officially disbanded. What did this mean?
No more war. Continual peace.
Police agencies were still kept in force as people will steal and kill and some people will do horrific acts. But every continent was without a military.
Things went well until a massive triple-storm struck somewhere around 2051. Triple as in a major typhoon that blanketed and destroyed 90% of Japan, China and Korea.
On another front, a dozen or more hurricanes crossed over Australia and wiped out the entire continent and what citizens who couldn't get away on boats, and either chartered airplanes or private jets.
More hurricanes thrashed its way across portions of South America and Africa killing hundreds of thousands of people.
Europe had been reported to be assaulted with massive cold fronts with temperatures falling below seventy degrees below zero. Power was down, and people were freezing to death and falling over as their body temps declined and they simply died. Between that and the massive snowfall in excess in some points as much as two-hundred feet, survival was at its very weakest.
The United States faced one of its longest comical fears come true. California had finally broken off into the ocean by way of major flooding and earthquakes. This also took Oregon and Washington State as well as portions of Arizona and Nevada. Millions of people, dead. The rest of the western states were under water and those who survived, migrated east.
Mexico was also engulfed by two-hundred foot high tidal waves, and those who managed to survive crossed a border that was no longer protected as everyone had been in a scramble to save their own life.
No place on earth was safe during this time.
Twelve years went by before things somehow returned to a form of normalcy. But it was then, chaos set in even deeper.
Massive hordes of gangs roamed the countryside. Pilfering what they could get, taking what they wanted, and killing anyone who stood in their way.
The police agencies weren't large enough to stop them. Those that tried were overrun and easily defeated. Madness, you could say ruled a nation, not a government.
So it became another natural disaster which took over ... human kind.
You either joined them or suffered by death. They were the only two options.
But there still are no wars among nations. Now, it is a war from city to city, house to house.
The year today is anyone's guess. The only thing that matters day to day is if you are still alive.
You pray and hope things will somehow change, but deep down, you know this is impossible.
Some time ago, over four-hundred men and women took up a stand to fight back and try to reclaim what everyone had at one time: Freedom. They all fell where they fought, and no one bothered to bury them.
Prepare yourself. We are surviving in the end of days.
the hand of the fish
eye of the mole
heart of the leaf
do not look for things that you cannot find, because that is how you start a myth. that is how you wake up at two pm and your most soft and darling girl is leaning over you with bright panic in her and you're not sure, what fluid is coming out of you? you can never tell.
and she laughs.
eye of the poppy seed
king of the sand grains
first discovery of bitterness happens with a green mango second discovery
is when your grandmother, small as she is, small thing she is, small thing that anyone would equate to the people she hates, won't let your ten year old mexican friend in the house
so you try to say that everyone will already think you two are the same, and your friend is grim, and you can't know how she feels. no one has refused you this way. no one will refuse you this way.
but the thing is that you are your friend are basically the same, really you're the same you're both from central, right, and ?
it's the same when one day cora, who is four, comes home from preschool and cries about her mixed girl hair, which is
a crooning
a soft never mess always mess
tongue of the frog
mouth of the rock
please, let us not look for what is not here
please, let us forget what is gone from us
Pain
Pins and needles are stabbing my spine.
My ears are ringing but I will be fine.
Flesh eating bacteria is gnawing at me.
There’s salt in my eyes so I cannot see.
My head is being beaten with a brick.
And in my anus there is a spiky stick.
I cannot breath my airway is thinning
But through all of this, I am still winning.
The Power of Words and Dirt
I’m not going to tell you what you already know: how words feed and heal; how they wound and conceal... that they are our voice of love and hate; describing us and our relationship to the world in and outside of ourselves. We know inherently that words define the confines of our mind. But how so? I would say simply that it is by the psychological weight we apply to different vocab. More difficult to ascertain, is exactly, “how” and more importantly “Why?”
Let me illustrate some intricacies with a true story... which I lived yesterday... fyi there will be language and related imagery that readers may find offensive... pertaining to “body parts.”
As you may already know from my previous writes, I teach Art. For the duration of this academic year, I am the long term maternity leave replacement for a high school three-dimensional design instructor. My relationship with my students is one of odd mutual respect and interest; I am childlike, they are childish. Generally speaking, we get along admirably well. They are unabashedly impressed with my various levels of artistic skill and at the same time very much compelled to test my professional resolve— their faces betray their doubt whey they anxiously ask, “if I like them?” They find it very hard to believe when I say that I enjoy spending our quickly fleeting class time. (I should add that their behavior is nothing other than average and their capacity for art is quite high.) Regardless of my reassurances, they put me to the test once in while, and this involves a challenge of words that conjure up certain sensitive visuals. We are in the latter stages of our unit on clay modeling; glazing our bisque ware and putting it in the kiln for the final firing. This allows for quite a bit of freedom of movement throughout the classroom as students gather their supplies. Always a potentially dangerous situation for the instructor.
It was in this sort of a mix that a couple of students called me over: “Come here,” without the customary could you, or please... I instinctively sensed that they had conspired something and were about to pull something orchestrated from up their sleeve. In characterizing the students I will only say that these were two boys— they have very specific descriptions, which would I believe, add unnecessary details detracting from my main point. So please accept my decision to keep their identities very vague. To continue, I had the impression that the one that wasn’t speaking, had dared the speaker, mostly likely questioning/ undermining his “manliness.” To this challenge, the second student could not, or would not, back down. And there was, indeed, a very real question as to how would I respond? I cite the following without any humor... as I find it to be a quite serious matter worthy of contemplating on deeper levels.
To put it directly, the one who spoke boldly albeit semi-privately, asked his teacher with considerable defiance (in his own eyes): “Ms. H—, do you know pineapple makes your pussy smell better?”
Though I heard him perfectly fine, I thought it best to stall a bit for time and check his resolve. I blankly said: what? like I didn’t hear him (...our classroom is noisy after all). He drew his breath a bit, but did not back down—god bless him— repeating the inquiry. Meanwhile I bit my tongue so as not to ask (as could be misinterpreted as a vulgar rejoinder) whether he meant eating it, or douching with the juices? or what?...my inquiring mind had instantaneously wondered... and I did not want to make light of the matter... though it might in retrospect be considered somewhat funny.
At the same time it was evident to me, and to the both of them no doubt, that our conversation would be, in the context of school and just about everywhere else, considered wholly “inappropriate.” What to do? It was plain as day that this was contingent in part to the significance of the matter, but most important was how I would deal with this “blatant” transgression of “acceptable language.”
In fairness to the reader, I should note that most of the students swear, much of the time... but stop short of certain words... like this one... or the “more offensive,” cunt, while being quite free with derogatory male comments.
The reprimands that they receive from me are respectful, I would like to believe... I remind them that it is important to practice self-restraint and self-discipline; I tell them that I do swear on occasion, just not in the school setting. But this, by the nature of the direct confrontation, was different. It was not their usual lack of self-reflection; but an act of premeditation. It was as if they really wanted to test, fundamentally, whose side am I on? ...what they would label these sides I can only vaguely speculate on the basis of my own predilections... such as perhaps, nonsense vs. reason. Flashing before my cinematographic third eye was the potentially livid response of many a woman whose reactions to similar matters I have witnessed or imagined from second hand narration— involving a scene of indignation, anger, calling down for the principal, culminating in a formal write up, and in-school suspension. That sort of uncalled for student behavior is of course alluded to in the student handbook under a policy of “no tolerance.”
At the same time I recognized that they are putting me to the test because my reactions tend to be... uncommon, for some reason that I cannot myself explain, and they are quite naturally overcome with curiosity. And so strange as it may seem, I immediately felt that it had taken a disproportionate amount of Courage, if one could plainly call it that, to say such a thing, to me or anyone else in this position... Without batting an eyelash I asked matter-of-factly, why they were asking me? Startled at my nonchalance he said, now exhibiting some nervousness, “You didn’t know that? I thought you should know that.” And I was struck, as I have been before, of the power that words hold over our lives, to create tension; I suspect this will go down as a strong memory for these individuals. Meanwhile, he suddenly became defensive, and began to point to his compatriot, declaring that he had been put to the task... and I had no doubt that it was so. I did not make a big deal of any of it. Instead I offered the observation that they were very comfortable (as I could routinely overhear amongst themselves) using male genitalia slang, that it was good to know that they are equally capable of using the terms for female genitalia. They fell silent, given this (unargueably valid) statement to think about.
A follow up from the day after should not go without noting, to bring some closure for the reader to this anecdote. The “instigating” student was absent today (as were many students on account that it was “bring your child to work day” so I put no significance on this absence despite the previous day’s incident). However the one who had spoken, was in attendance, and I perceived that he evoked a respect that he previously, for whatever personal reservations, had not had. I myself had felt it was a sort of Cartesian moment, a clearing of the slate of stigma and prejudice.
As artists of any medium, I believe, we have a definite responsibility to free ourselves, and others if possible, from the fictitious bondage that society attributes to certain words... in or out of context. So that we wield power over words, and not the other way around. Thanks much for reading... especially if the subject was felt to be difficult or unpleasant... I appreciate your patience and reflections on this matter. Thanks!
#ThePowerOfWords #Challenge
