The one where I admit I’m taking my own advice…

We‘re all in the same game, just different levels. Dealing with the same hell, just different devils. — attributed to many.

I keep finding broken hearts looking for help. I find I have advice to give them.
More than that I find the advice I have for them is the advice I need.
And I hope, the advice others need.
Because none of us are in this life alone. None of us get out of it alive.

Giving each other comfort is the least we can do.

 

First, stop being noble. Cry. Honestly cry. Cry, wail, and weep. Be sad. Being sad at the loss of love is normal. It is ok. It is HEALTHY. It is Ok to be sad. Let it out and let the peace that comes after be yours. You must let go of those hopes, dreams and plans that will never happen with those that have decided to leave. You can’t make them stay and that is OK. But you have to mourn their loss so you are left with the worthy and loving person that is left: You.

 

Next, do what you have done for everyone else your whole life: forgiveness. Take honest stock in your flaws, and forgive yourself for them. Physical, Mental, Emotional. Look at all the things you think are wrong with you and forgive yourself for them. Stop punishing yourself for them. Accept yourself and be at peace with who you are. From here you can look upon yourself and realize what are honest flaws that you need to work on, and what are quirks that make you vulnerable.

 

Being vulnerable can leave you open to be hurt, but it is no flaw. Having an open heart takes strength. And never confuse pain with weakness. A giant may carry a castle up a mountain and it may cause great fatigue and even pain, but none would doubt its strength.

 

Once you give yourself the forgiveness you bestow on others you can start on the process of changing what you really don’t like about yourself. Give yourself priority. Working out, taking up hobbies, traveling where you want. Going to the theater (live or screen) not to share the experience but because YOU enjoy it. In short: date yourself. Show yourself the love you bestow on others.

 

It starts with forgiveness. Of turning your most powerful heart upon yourself and giving yourself the attention, respect, and even some slack that you bestow upon everyone else.

 

Next is fear. You must address your fears, identify them and overcome them. Not of spiders or the dark, but of abandonment, loneliness, of self worth, and even commitment. Find them. Identify them. Know they are there and how they make you react to given situations. Work to understand them and pry their ghostly fingers from your heart. You can overcome them, but you must know their names to do it.

 

Next is friends. You have them. Bring them close. Rely on them. Communicate with them. Celebrate with them. You are never a burden. You are their friend. Stop being paralyzed and isolated by fear and guilt. If your friends are unworthy, then find ones that are.

 

Friends, lovers, and mates are people. To find them you must go to where they are. You will not find them alone in the dark. Walk to where there is light and laughter. If you want someone who shares your interests, do things you are interested in. Cooking classes, Meetup.org groups, local festivals are all places that may have activities that speak to you. It is something you enjoy, allowing you to love yourself, allows you to meet with friends, gaining support, and provide you with a venue to meet someone who will love you for the amazing person you are.

 

You are a beautiful woman. Once you learn to be comfortable in your own skin, to WANT someone instead of NEED, you will be more than beautiful. You will glow. You will shine like a sun. You will attract someone who is worthy of you, and have the strength and judgement to turn away those who are unworthy.

 

More than that I haven’t figured it out yet.

I found the road. I can guide you to it, but I’m only a few steps further down it than you are. Stumbling, faint of heart, but still walking upright. And when I have to, I crawl.

The one where I tell the truth…

 

 

Things have been hard. But they are getting better. I’m standing taller. And every day there seems another thing to knock me back down. But I’m getting up again. Every damn time.

But I’m not writing a lot yet. So I’m speaking how I can. Healing as I can. Getting better as I can.

 

Truth

I wander,

lost

In the alien void,

a cloak,

a ghost.

A ripple of blackness in the void of sharp things and night.

 

Then I see one,

lost and alone.

A perfectly formed creature of light and life

grimly trudging in this place

where it does not live,

and does not belong.

 

For it stumbles to its knees.

And my heart aches

For this is a being of the sun

but its glow is so faint

flickering and faltering

weeping golden drop of dusk into a dark world that does not care.

 

I glide forward

insides twisting and dancing

deathly afraid of the glowing, beautiful thing.

I touch it and it burns me.

Fire upon my dark skin

But the light, the light is brighter as it searches the darkness for hope.

 

I see the embers of my flame kissed hand,

and to the face of beauty that weeps

and I spread myself like the dusk

and settle upon the burning beauty

The agony is immediate

And it fills all my senses as I scream…

 

And then it is gone, running.

It is bright again,

it is healthy, whole.

and as fireflies borne of my own skin flicker past my eyes

It is able to move on

and it does.

 

I see the burning dawn on the horizon

I know the angel will be alright.

So I flee into the dark

The caves, alone

in the night that never ends

alone.

 

But again, in starlight

I emerge and wander in my sadness

and again, a beautiful wanderer

and again, used and discarded.

To make them strong

left to convalesce in the dank.

 

But it changed me, these angels.

I saw a simmering radiance on the walls of my cave

and I knew the burns had healed black

But inside, the fire still burned

Still glowed.

And I wondered if the night would ever have me back.

 

But then it came,

An angel with only a flicker of luster

wounded and alone.

And I stayed my hand,

for fear and memory burned me.

Worse than any reality ever could.

 

But those eyes, those glorious portal of a sojourning soul

could finally see me and begged for contact,

for understanding.

I dove into the angel and the fire turned me into a bonfire.

But I knew the true nature of love.

And it is what you give, not what you receive.

 

I fell to the rocks,

Fire tracing my every fiber, discarded and alone.

I heard the angel shift,

I waited to hear it walk away.

But then it touched me, lifted me

and held me to its burning breast.

 

I screamed and I roared

I burned and I felt I would die

and so it set me down

and began to walk to the dawn

but even as it walked, and the fires died on my skin

I saw the angel, and saw the beautiful burning soul streaked with the blackest night.

 

I dragged myself from the thorny ground

And I flew for the celestial form

I settled about it

but it flung me off

and ran for the dawn

powerful, and light, and dark, and strong.

 

I chased it with tenacity

and with speed and soul and songs

and still it ran.

Until I realized it wasn’t running from the night.

It was running from me, and the hurt it could do to me.

And we came to the celestial line, and it stumbled again.

 

I raced beyond it as it again fell,

Standing between a painful life with it and the doom behind me.

and I saw the sparkling streams of sadness

strung through with darkness, my darkness eating at the light.

But the sun was coming. Coming for me.

And the angel reached for me, afraid.

 

I burst with speed I flew like the wind.

Into the arms of the sun.

The light it seared me

it punched through to my core.

It ripped apart everything it touched

And I screamed in the light, my flaws laid bare.

 

I cried as I burned, in the light of a new dawn

Fears like fissures dripping with fire

and an amalgam of truth punching into my core

as I screamed.

I cried.

The angel crawled beyond endurance to the edge of the dawn.

 

It reached for me

from inside the night,

Tears falling like rain.

And I reached for it,

fires from my body

pouring black smoke into the sky

 

The angel lurched, it flailed, the sky burning the night inside it

and it came under the nourishing eye of the day.

It enveloped me into its arms.

and together we burned,

and together we cried

as the night was taken from us in a conflagration

 

And finally, finally,

one did for me what I had always done for them.

And after I looked into the angel’s perfect eyes.

And I waited. For we were burning.

But I had hope.

That at least We would burn together.

 

Burn until the night, the darkness inside,

was gone forever,

and we could walk hand in hand.

Through every day, and every night,

together.

The one where I go back to my roots

Not mine, but it speaks to me. Much respect to the artist.

I started writing as a poet. A bad one. Yeah, I’m sure that’s a surprise to everyone.

Pimply, round. Lonely. I could only express myself through words packed like a fist from the mouth of a volcano. On paper.

I have gone through a divorce, as clean and fast as anyone I have ever heard of. The emotional cost, however, has been vast. It has taken a toll on my creative side. Every time I get to something emotional, something real, I shy away like an animal faced with fire.

My health is improving and now the emotional rebuilding has begun. My temper has been bad as of late. Adversity is no longer a mountain to be overcome, but a punishment from a fickle and uncaring god. I can’t live like that, and that means a change. I can only hope those around me will cut me slack when I need it and be hard on me when it is called for. I have also decided to go back to the beginning.

I need to start writing. For my sanity, for my future, and for my… To have a purpose again.

So, back to the beginning. Bad poetry stuttered out from an embarrassed pen.

And by that road, I will get back to where I need to be.

 

It Survives

I am told that my love is water.

And I worry.

For water, tempestuous and tossed,

It swallows and it storms.

And shatters the heavens with electric fangs.

It uses knives made of its own body

to carve stone from the mountain face.

And to rush down valleys sweeping everything from its path.

The voice inside me, it knows these truths

And it burns with the cold of a thousand fathoms

Feels the pressure of merciless depths of my passion

And I wonder who will plumb me.

To know me even where the brightest sun cannot see

But who would want to,

And who would dare

To swim in the uncounted

unknowable

depths

Where the brightest sun cannot see.

But then I remember that the sun does shine

And it dances on the surface of my adoration

like angels at play.

And though it can rage, it can also heal,

Falling gently on living things

Bringing life to the moonscape

and health to the wilting.

It can fulfill any vessel,

And quench any thirst

Brave enough to press lips to sip

And it may be frozen

Locked in prison for millennia

it may be buried in the shifting sands,

too far for mortal hands to reveal

But though it be boiled on desert rocks

Or tossed into the sky on thousand foot drops

It may be smashed into vapor, trod into dirt,

It may be beaten and left and forgotten

But my love is water

and it will sneak into the sky

And form dragons and wolves and lions

It may turn black and threaten

It may scatter the sunlight into beautiful spectrums

But it never dies

And it never fails

It cannot be destroyed

For it is my love.

And it always, always survives.

Even where the brightest sun cannot see.