Thursday, September 8, 2011

Born Broken

You tease me with your sacred silence. I had forgotten how hard it was to reach out and hold this tiny ball of the sun. It warms my skin, dries all the tears on my face, and makes the leaves rustle and burn behind me as they spiral out of control.

I go deeper inside. I cannot care anymore what the world thinks of me. Have me or destroy me. It’s not up to me anyway. I’m out there for everyone to see, but I’m met with walls of shadow. I think I must be deeper than I realize, which is why I spend all my time here. I can’t conform to shallow routines. I'm simply intensity too hard to handle. Anymore, I think it must be a curse, the role I have to play, all this pressure inside, a deep, unbroken sea, while the games wage war from up above. I can think of you no longer. It simply brings too much pain. I cannot pretend, or breathe your face, wish you into existence, pretend you’re real, have you there when I need you most. It’s like trying to hold a shadow, a puff of smoke, and I think about how much time I've wasted, how much got away from me, trying to believe it was all real. My heart alone is more than I can take. I wrap it up on a daily basis, trying to stop the bleeding, but nothing helps. I go deeper inside, hiding inside me, curl into a little black ball that blots out the sun.

I used to want to make it sing, louder than anyone could hear, deafen your ears, make your heart soar, change you as a person, make you think and be something you never thought you could be before. Maybe I could write poetry that moved easily, like water over polished stones. I am my own deception. I create the lies, all the situations that make me think there’s hope out there, but I get in my own way. I didn’t know there was more than one of me. All this talk and crazy voices, drowning out the life I see, and they won’t go away. They speak and make mouths on the table, on the walls and counter tops. Eyeballs watch me from every which way. It is just me in here, with all this going on, worlds upon worlds, and I haven’t touched the one I really live in. I wonder what my fate must be. I don’t care if I never make a million dollars. I realized that was never the most important thing, just another reason to be a prisoner to a materialistic regime. I don’t care anymore if I meet the woman of my dreams. She’s brought me too much pain that I can bear, and I haven’t even seen her face.

The leaves rustle, burn like crimson, and turn away again, unable to stop these tears on my face. Odysseus cried a lot, it seemed, and there was never a stronger man. This does not make me weak, I tell myself. But I’m not sure I believe it. Odysseus was, after all, a king.

I wanted to write all these sonnets for you, little poems about love, how much you mean to me, change the face of art as we know it, save a life or two. I figured that was a noble dream, but too high a delusion, and it just made me insane. Between these two demon voices waging war with each other is my twisted face anyway, nothing more than a lonely, haggard visage, haunted by everything and feeling too much. I adopt other people’s pain. It seeps inside and won’t go away, makes me feel I’m being generous at least, performing some selfless, charitable deed. Do they feel better after they give it to me? Or maybe I take it without asking. Helps me forget who I am. That is not a bad thing. I am a ghost to myself. My whispers bear no weight. Cry on my shoulder, but try not to fall through. I am not substance. I never have been.

Cut me here. And here. And here. And there. Sever everything that ties me to you, and watch me float away. Part of my fantasy was dreaming in space, beholden to none. None of the pressure now to be so perfect all the time, this impossible challenge, this quandary I gave myself. A belaboring issue warns. God, I just want to be rid of you! How long must you follow me around with your sad little eyes and your puppy dog tail? You make me so damn furious! What is this even supposed to be? Expression? Madness? Pain? I’m just tired of the same old things.

Lament and drop this heavy stone on me, my marker of repose. Leaden those skies! Burn my face with fire! I just need a really good excuse to not go out anymore. I guess my heart has shattered. Nothing surprises me anymore, gets me excited.

There is water in space. Pretty water, like silver, has bubbles. From there, maybe I can just watch the rest of the world go by. I can have my own silver bubble, just for me, just my own, something outlandish, like a fairy-tale, that finally makes sense. Hope, I think, would have been a good thing to go without. Hope creates want, and want creates pain. If only I’d never had hope, I think, I could’ve learned how to live, learned how to breathe. Hope is a devil of a thing. All this wanting, all this longing, human ache opened up a wound here, a wound there, watching my blood spill out all over the place. Angry voices telling me I’m not good enough, reminding me I’m not a movie star, that everyone has wants and wants and wants, and the things I have to give no one cares about, so get used to it. They want football stadiums, fancy meals, and travels around the world. I’m just another poor and lonely man among the rest, a heart twice as big as his chest, and not a single confession can I utter that means anything. I'll take just one soul who cares.

I’m trying to let them go, trying to forget them. I’m not sure what that means. I put my hands to my ears and scream and scream and scream. Shards of broken glass lodge in my throat. Just to think…Something still…something broken…something beautiful. Beauty is different for everyone, I guess. This is okay. This is beautiful to me, despite what you think.

Something soft…a rose petal maybe between my fingertips, satin against my cheek. Left out here in the middle of the highway with my guts spilled out all over the place and only a needle and thread to stitch me back together. Born broken. Two demon horns lodged into my chest, driving me up against the wall. Confessions and honesty that amount to shit, that amount to shit, that amount to shit. My face staring back at me in pity and shame. All I can do is shake my head. Maybe there’s something more important than dreams coming true. More than just a movie star. Loathe to live with myself, sick to read this drivel and blasphemy. I know that’s you Death, creeping around my door. What the fuck are you afraid of, you pansy-ass piece of shit?

Hold that pretty porcelain face, cupped in my two hands. Stare into my eyes. Look deep. Deeper still. Beg. Plead. No. No. Don’t cry. I need you to see something beautiful inside. What a fool I am, with only myself to blame.

I shatter another glass in two, look behind me and cry some more, wondering how all this happened, who made me what I am. Was it me? Was it you? God above? A choice I made? Not sure why. There must’ve been a reason. Because it simply seemed like the right thing to do. I look behind me, demon’s at my heels, a horde of them, laughing, grumbling, garbled voices, claws like teeth, teeth like knives. Sometimes there are simply too many wounds to heal, and there I take on the wounds of others. Lessen your pain. Make you smile. Put myself on hold for a while. It’s okay. It takes me out of myself. That’s the best gift I can give. Helping you while helping me. “Could someone pick up my arm and put it back in place? I can stitch it back together myself.”

There is a child there, sucking his thumb, his back against the wall. He is terrified, too afraid to even cry, to speak. We all have one. I step close, bend down, but he doesn’t recognize me. His eyes are sewn shut.

Tiny sun. Little ball of white. Fill my hands, warm my brain, give my heart a golden plate. Satin between my fingertips. Rose petal on my cheek. Going deeper. Deeper still. Always deeper. Suffocation. Under water pressure. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Deeper still. I have to do this, uncover as much as I can, despite how much it terrifies me. I tell myself this makes me brave, but I wonder…I’m starting to think this is a full time job in here, and that’s just the way it’s gonna be. All those dreams will have to wait a while.

I whisper to myself: Demon Slayer. Knight of Honor, Truth and Chivalry. Poet Prince. Golden Warrior of the Sun, to make myself feel better. I know they’re in there somewhere. I am good for something, something for me, something for you, even if you’re not there. Wanting just got in the way. Painful wanting. Bitchy, horrible, asshole wanting. You got in the way of all the good things, all the things I tried to do that meant something beautiful. None of them with you. How I wanted. How I prayed. God, at least, gave me a heart, a spirit strong enough to endure it. Does being alive mean I obtained a victory? I can hurt. I can bleed. Thank God for that. Some cannot. I can make my emotions count for something, for someone, even if only for pretend. Even if for me. It’s about time I put myself at the front of the line. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

Silence echoes through my den. My pen falls and writes again. I have nothing new to say, nothing to change any lives, just another confused muse trying to get through, wanting to make sense out of something senseless. Why not through me, I think? I needed something to do anyway. There’s still so much I don't understand, after trying so hard, after coming so far. Did I think a reward would be given? That I deserved some Nobel Prize? That I was entitled? Was I really that naïve? I deserve to be humbled.

Something’s clawing at my window. Best to leave it be. My footsteps fade and echo along the street. I walk by couples holding hands and utter to every one of them, barely above a whisper: “May you always be in love.”