May you Resolve to be Unresolved

May you keep a vision alive in your mind
not a burning vision that blinds
but a low lit flame that warms
and draws you toward
and whispers to you
not, of a different you
but of a you,

that can breathe more deeply
that can walk taller, and live fuller
the same you,
that you ought to have loved

from the moment you first fell down
from the moment you first gave up
from the moment you chose the safer option
from the moment you put up that first fence

May you keep a vision alive in your mind
a subtle flame of otherness
that allows you to slip in between the spaces
between the versions of your self

those you love a little more,
those you hate a little more,
those you are more willing to show
those you would like to hide

May you learn to love your mess
May you find the terrorist within,
and begin talks
may you encounter the craziest reflection of yourself
and look back with love, and honesty, and grace

May you learn to cry, and break down
May you learn to stop being strong
May you learn not to have it all together

May you resolve, to be unresolved

Beyond the Bars

Beware of the Watchmen.

If you are thinking of escape,

they are on alert

and will catch you in their gaze.

and convince you that

here is where you belong

sure, it's almost all you have known

Beware of the Watchmen

if you need to get free;

to open the shackles

and learn how to breathe

For beyond the bars

it's uncertain and cruel

To leave this security

Would be the wish of a fool

Beware of the Watchmen

and their cocktail of fixes

for if you try to get past

their barbed wire and ditches

you'll have become so hooked

on their dopamine lines

you'll return like a dog

with tail between thighs

Give me back my screens

Give me back my vice

Give me back my blanket

Give me back my lies

But Sir,

the doors are wide open

and you have the key

You own this prison

You didn't want to be free!

Security Blankets

My inner child has been drinking
Not me
No, not me

Because I have been thinking
That I don't need to be drinking
At least
Not every night of the fucking week

And I have been thinking
About how my body needs a break
Before it breaks
If it hasn't already
Broken, with secret aches
That will reveal themselves
At later dates

And I have been thinking
About how the liquid in the
Glass or tin
Helps me avoid a change within
An acceptance I will not make
Like a ghost feeling
From the death of god
I'm still caught up in its wake
Still alone, for Christ's sake
And holding onto loss
Like it holds me

As if, since God, I've been incomplete
As if, since Love, I've been incomplete

But, it's my inner child that's been drinking
Not me
No, not me

Nausea

From where did this illusion come?
Who fed me this illusion?
Was I force-fed it? Spoon-fed it? Breast-fed it?

Wouldn't we all sell our souls; our desires, in exchange for contentment, safety, security? We'll buy a myth, a story, a fortune cookie from any gypsy on the street, just to be able to have a prediction of the future...to kinda-know what we're in for...kinda-know what the stars hold for us.

We swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and we swallowed it because we begged for it. We begged for the appeasement. Anything to minimise the nausea of the open sea; of freedom, decision and risk. Desiring is such a risky business. Some of us titillate ourselves with wants, appeased but unsatisfied. Wants are the diuretics of the soul. We addict ourselves to wines and spirits, but starve ourselves of the waters we are truly thirsty for. We trade in our desires and the risks inherent in them, passing the responsibility on to someone else or something else.

We, who like to get caught up or swept away. We, who are the flotsam and jetsam in the turbulent river of our circumstances. We, who let it all feel like it is beyond our control. We, the passive pawns push our desires safely beyond our reach. We get to wash our dirty hands of messy, disconcerting desires. Lest we be caught in the act of desiring, and acting on it, and risking getting something close to satisfied. We console ourselves with the idea that life was beyond our control; beyond the realm of our own personal freedom, decision and risk.

Do we pray to a God to change his mind about his working in the world, or is God beyond human persuasion? Like Jesus in Gethsemane, requesting the cup of suffering to be taken away from him. We request it, we plead for it; sweat blood for it in utter desperation, and we suffer the disappointment, suffer the world that does not correspond with our desires.

The Gethsemane of the Disillusionment, when Narcissus is left without an Echo.

Of course, we crave control, as much as we crave the loss of it. Yet, oftentimes it is the fear that wins out, and we retreat to safety in the surrogacy of responsibility. Risking the world against the weight of our desires. Throwing out our voices like Narcissus, hoping desperately for the return, for the correspondence. Here we are, hooked on the idea and the illusion that the world corresponds to our desires.

It doesn't.

Sometimes it does, or seems to, but that is simply a hankering after the illusion of correspondence. That is me reading with desperate eyes and a hungry heart, trying to connect the arbitrary with the intentional. The intention of a God, the intention of fate, being looked after, watched over and provided for. My secret needs, known without the risk and responsibility of communication, and those needs being met. Ah, sweet synchronicity, blessed coincidence, the answer to prayer.

The twenty pound note on the pavement when you are running low on funds at the end of the month. The love of your life coming into your life just when you were feeling so lost and alone. The lost ticket being found just in time for the departure on a long journey. The health of a loved one returning days after the prayers have been said.

But, then there is the falling feeling. There is the nausea. I have felt it before at different times of my life. Each time I had convinced myself that I had developed my sea legs; (and maybe someday I will) the nausea had gone, but what I had really done was I paddled back to dry land. I was flicking my toes in the water, longing for the open sea, but too terrified to go out of my depth: beyond the continental shelf of my control, into the turbulent ocean of my desires.

When the world corresponds, we get to wash our hands of the responsibility for communicating difficult feelings, and we get drugged on the myth once again. We dread the thought of demystifying our desires and the complex little stories we weave around them. Like the partner who never experiences pleasure during sex, yet refuses to communicate what it is that might bring them pleasure. Suffering in silence, the dissatisfaction, the discomfort or even the pain, rather than risk making a request. All to maintain some illusion, to keep us mystified and hidden in a cloud of our own making.

Some are getting by on their own personal superstitions. They roam the streets, with nervous ticks, expecting nothing but hoping for everything, disguising their hopes through the monotony of routine and ritual. They are the magpies looking for treasure. Looking for the coins that have fallen through the hole in God's pocket. Still hooked on the illusion of connectedness, just lowering our expectations little by little, until we are waiting desperately for crumbs of correspondence. Morsels of meaning.

Still out at sea, and still looking for dry land.