I just had the worst dream.
I sometimes dream of other paths I could have taken, other words I could have said.
And I dreamed we were deliriously happy. Because I’d said the right thing in the right way. I did not spin out. Wasn’t depressed, so I said the thing that made all the difference. In the dream you were looking at a sign that said 67 or 62 miles to Phoenix. Whatever I’d said got you moving towards me like two magnets with an irresistible pull. I’d love to know what I said. I’d say it now. Even knowing that now is probably too late.
Thoughts
Dream of other selves
I dreamed of a young seeker approaching a sprawling mansion complex. To call it a mansion is to call the Marianas trench a hole in the ground
I had prior dreamed of the approach to the mansion of lives lived that brought the seeker to this place. Of people they had been and had since forgotten as one life bleeds into the next.
The seeker must answer a math problem. The math problem is one of rounding but in a system of math that is not often used and the numbers are different from base 10.
The seeker, a woman, fails twice. So flustered by the foreign experience. I fear I influenced her and instead of trying a third time we held the keypress that would generate the infinity symbol.
I sensed that the seeker had been here before and she was able to get in normally prior. When the symbol was entered a number of options was shown. Normal entrance included. But information and other experiences as well. The various rejection possibilities, the death possibilities, in addition bits of legendary knowledge, actual curated data on things that have never been but might be again.
The seeker chose a normal entrance.
But I was not the seeker. I was an observer behind her eyes. No I was the man she was going to see. A version of me. A version who had plundered his dreams and acquired wealth and knowledge. Both things I enjoy. And still he was profoundly unhappy. This permeated the whole complex. Lush gardens and miniature rainforests, paintings stolen from museums and replaced by facsimiles, beauty abounded. And still the man, a version of me, was empty.
I am describing a bare portion of everything. It was a whole world and it now sits behind my eyes.
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Undiscovered
I wonder if anyone realizes the shear quantity, and maybe quality, of things I don’t publish.
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All in or on hold
It’s come to my attention that I can either be attentive, engaged, and, metaphorically speaking, right by your side or I can seem distant, which may come off as uninterested.
I don’t know how to do that middle ground.
If I seem distant it’s generally because I was the former and I was asked to cool it or back down. But I only have racecar or go-kart modes.
I don’t know how to go at a normal speed. I’m either all in or in a holding pattern. I’ve tried to bridge the gap and I end up at one end or the other fairly quickly.
The only way I can do less is if I know it is for the emotional well-being of the person and even there, as in all things, there are times that I fuck up.
And I don’t know that being less than all in is something I want. I get why people want to go slow. But for me, that’s what the slow getting to know you before I made the approach is for.
Maybe I’m a minority opinion. Maybe there are too many assholes who go fast to get what they want then get out. Maybe I’m lost in the noise.
Or maybe I’m being overly generous and setting myself up as iconoclastic because it feeds my ego.
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2AM, still kinda a jerk
Am I just lonely, looking for attention, a companion to keep the loneliness at bay or am I worth knowing? I think there are people who would say the latter but I am awake in the middle of the night. And I wonder.
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Lame joke?
A Dominant and submissive walk into a bar. The Dominant says to his submissive, “What will you have?”
The submissive says “I’ll order whatever you order.”
The dominant waves down the bartender and order Ginger Ale and waits for his submissive to order.
The submissive says to the red headed bartender, “Ginger, I’ll have a Ale.”
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Shielding and empaths
People who feel empathy or are perceptive and receptive of the emotions around them often talk about building shields. Building walls. Building cacoons. Building shells. They sequester themselves behind these walls and only venture out when they perceive things to be safe.
But things are never safe, not really. And when they get hurt they retreat behind their walls. And those shields, those walls get thicker. And thicker. Until even stepping outside them is painful. Until, like someone in a completely clean environment, the world itself becomes dangerous.
I say they. But I mean, we. Because I have done this. I built shields. I built a fortress.
Then I internalized the shields and instead of holding things at bay I turned off the thing that made the shields neccesary.
I turned off feeling. I turned off love. Turned off hope. Turned off joy. Turned off despair. Turned off pain. Turned off everything. Until only the highest high and the lowest low could get through. And both were the barest of sensation. So both became the same thing. And if I wanted to feel, either would do.
But this doesn’t really work. What I had done was create a retention basin. It was deep and large and I on the other side saw it as a done deal. But none of the emotions and pain dissipated. They all just seethed in my subconscious. Slowly building. Until the day that I decided, I’d try to turn my emotions back on.
At first, it was as if I couldn’t get to them. I had started the sluice but it took it awhile to get going. I felt despair. And it felt amazing. Pain like you cannot imagine. Sensation when there was none for the longest time, years.
Then the dam broke and I was drowning in it all. And I wanted to build the shields but I couldn’t. There was nothing that would hold back this onslaught. And slowly, I learned to deal with the pain.
Because there was no other choice. Hiding behind walls was not possible. So I had to find another way. Instead of walls.
I became like air, like water. Things could float to me, surround me, but I chose what to take in, what to expel. I bent with the current. Let it take me to joy or despair or love. And I took in what I needed. Sometimes I found myself drowning. No system is perfect.
But feelings can be learned from and dealt with, only when they are confronted, seen and allowed to effect you. It’s easy to want to be safe. But all safety based on walls is illusion. Only in the willingness and ability to protect oneself can one find any semblance of safety.
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Subject of reevaluation?
Whenever I see a post about someone decluttering their life and reevaluating people in their lives, I wonder in a heart hurting way, am I one of those things.
As the silence draws out, what other conclusion could I reach?
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Working through
Sometimes depression gets the better of me. Sometimes I’m too much in my head. Sometimes my poetry reveals a thought or a idea that I don’t consciously consider. To me, that is the point. Not just to create something that resonates but something that also forces my mind and thoughts into the light. So that I can begin to work on it.
That thought that I’m not worth loving has been kicking around my brain for 2 years. And only yesterday could I force it far enough to the surface that I can begin to deal with it. Instead of being a secret I hold like it is something precious, now it is revealed for the cancer it is. Now that I cannot deny that I have this thought, now I can’t hide from it. Now it can be fought.
I know this is hard to read. I know that there are people here who care. I thank you for letting me work through my baggage in this public forum. Without this cold light, I think my mind could convince itself it could reclaim the thought. But now, it’s out in the world. And I refuse to be that man. The one who blames instead of solves. I’m sorry if reading it hurt anyone. I hope it didn’t.
So thank you. For being here.
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Unexpected wrecking ball
I’m looking at my phone. It’s with me all the time with the Internet and Facebook and games and texts. And I’m thinking, there is nothing this phone can do that can distract me from this pain. There is nothing it can do to give a moment of peace. Nothing that gives hope. Nothing that gives purpose.
Just this endless pablum of white noise that does nothing to stop the screaming voice that sobs out, “You are unwanted. Unloved. What are you still doing here.”
And I think of the people I could reach out to and just who would that be? It’s not ok. It’s not going to be OK. I’ve had my fill of I know what you’re going through or I wish you didn’t know what that feels like. I am going through it. I do know what it feels like. The only thing that stops it is when I don’t feel alone. This is just what is. I try my damndest. But I’m right back where I started. If anything, more bruised and jaded.
Nothing is good, nor will it ever be again. That’s what today feels like.
Pelgris 