Open the Gate

When we met, the world was different and we were different in it. 

You had a life growing inside you and I felt as if I was the walking dead. Standing there on borrowed time waiting for it to run out. 

Your face seemed sad but had a glimmer of hope. Was it due to the baby you were yet to bare to the world? Was it the temporary respite you'd receive from the humdrum of work? Was it something else? 

You were younger, still are younger, than I. Looking at the world through a lens I can never see through. That of a young mother, that of uncertainty to the life your child will lead, a clouded future blurred by past pains and fears. 

That I could relate to, being in my own cloud of pain. A pain I wanted to keep to myself lest I foist it onto another. How could I share this pain with someone who was on the brink of something so grand as motherhood? How could I bring my sorrow and doubt and fear to someone who seemed to have their own and no want of mine? 

You told me that you looked my way and I was afraid. There I was on the edge of forever one foot hanging over the edge ready to plunge and there you were throwing me a lifeline. 

You couldn't have known the depths of my sorrow, the ache in my heart. You were driven by your own ache, an ache for companionship, an ache of lust, an ache of striking out with one's feelings since our lives are short and sometimes you need to risk the heartache for a chance at a full and exacting love. 

I let my pain and my fear speak to you. I had nothing to give. No heart, no future, no will even to live. I was ready to step off that ledge but I turned and saw you standing there once more. 

A young woman, a life inside ready to meet the world, a fear in her eyes, a small smile on her face. A face that was ready to hide at a second glance. Skin that was electrified by the most innocent of touch. A heart aching for someone, a heart aching for me. 

I couldn't fathom how she could look at me and see anything but a wretch putting on airs to hide the fact that his insides were crumbling away. Decay and rot had taken hold and a smile and a laugh were but feeble veils to screen the world from that reality. 

Perhaps love is blinding, perhaps she saw and didn't care. Perhaps in a world of woes and sorrows two people full of doubt find each other to try and bring about something new and bright and warm. 

I gave you time to reconsider, to let your passions wane, to let myself decide if living was what I wanted, if life was worth the pain. 

You had the child, he was beautiful, is beautiful like his mother. 

I held you before I held him. In my arms, in my heart. 

I wanted to show you and myself that life could be better if we let it be better, if we made it be better. 

You often spoke about not being good enough, how you'd end up alone. I didn't understand that thought at all. You were and are beautiful, smart, funny, determined, creative, strong willed, caring, and full of love to give those around you. 

You are also full of doubts and fears and sorrows, much like myself. But you need not hold onto those aspects when the others are so much more worth your energy. 

We have both found life renewed, even after all the bumps and bruises, cursed words, cold shoulders, and times apart. Life with another is never easy. It is full of loves and pains. 

We have both given ourselves up to one another to try and fight through that pain and fear. To find a solid ground so that we might stand together. 

You with your fears of standing alone. Me with my fears of wretchedness and death. 

We can let the world crumble below our feet or we can stand together hand in hand and build it up as one. 

The young woman I saw all those years ago has grown and become someone I'm sure she never expected she'd be. Strong, resilient, driven, ambitious. 

You are more than your pain, your fears, your doubts, your failures. You are so much more. 

I can't claim to always see it, when I can't see past my own failures. But I hope that you can. I hope that you can see yourself the way you deserve to be seen. 

I love you and I'm sorry. For being a wretch when you met me, for being a man with embedded doubts and fears about himself and the future. A man who was ready to step off the edge, that you unknowingly brough back from the brink. 

You are worth the world. 

Take These Hands and Make Some Use

 I often ask myself "Who am I?" to speak, to share, to voice my opinion. 

I realized today that I am no one, but that I can become someone. 

I've had the tools at my disposal to elevate myself to a place where my voice can be heard. 

I just need to use these tools to create that voice, to make the person worthy of speaking and sharing. 

Once that elevation has occurred then I will be able to answer that initial question of "Who am I?".

I will be an author, a thinker, a creator, a storyteller, a listener, a scholar, a scribe, and eventually a sage. 

If you strive for mediocrity you will always succeed, if you strive for success you will fail until you succeed. 

An Artist on Art

I have a shining bobble, whatever shall I do? 

I have a shining bobble that I wish to share with you. You have shown no interest so I don't bother you with it. For a day or two it pleases my eye until with time I'm used to the shine and its luster. It soon losses all sense of brightness. I cannot muster another glance myself. 

I have a shining bobble that I wish to share with you. I bring it to you with an eagerness I have not shown before. You shun me and say its not that shiny or bear it no consequence. I look again and it appears duller. Was it really that shiny to begin with? 

I have a shining bobble that I wish to share with you. You look it over and comment on spots that are dim without acknowledging the spots that are bright. When you return it to me my mind fixates on the dull spots, though I scarcely noticed them before until all the shine is gone and the whole thing is dull. 

I have a shining bobble that I wish to share with you. You grow ecstatic at having been given the chance to share in the viewing but as soon as you get it your eyes close and your mouth twists up. I wait patiently for your ecstasy to return but it never does. I take it back and its turned black in my hands. 

I have a shining bobble that I wish to share with you. You take it and make note of its dullness and bright spots. You even offer to help me polish it. I'm worried at first but I trust you. Together we make it brighter than it was when I found it. We both share in its shine and the thought that we made something good even better. 

Will Well

 taken on the whole i can't reconcile my feelings about my life or the things that exist within it. 

there appears to be a blackhole where my soul used to be. i remember great pain existing deep in my chest that would pulse with each breath and drain my will. that has subsided but with that dismissal i'm left without other feelings. 

i used to rage or wax poetic or lament in these pages but that has become a lost art. 

i'm failing even now to replicate it in trying. 

what has stifled my thoughts and feelings? a dam on my heart? a clog in my soul? a desecration of my creative will? 

i long for love and loss and pain and pleasure. i long for nights spent wondering about the future. nights i hated in the moment, that i envy now in the present. 

flakes

The inkwell is dry.

Only Death Awaits

I don't wish to burden those I love with my woes. I have many and they weigh more than I can handle. The logical thing would be to ask for help. And I've done as much but that help has only gotten me so far. It seems I need to start moving forward under my own power but I feel as if that power is lost to me.

I've lost my will to live. Seeing that my life will only be these woes over and over again. I wish to end my life and rid myself of them.

I've done things, I've made friends, I've had love, and I've done good, but that's not enough to keep me moving now. I've been in my own way for the majority of my life and now I see that the only way to get rid of that is to get rid of myself.

I know there will be those who mourn my death. I apologize for that. I don't want to hurt you, I simply want to end my own hurt.

I have become a stain upon my own life. A do nothing, with no future, with no capability for longevity and a failure time and time again.

The last one I loved is better off without me. The friends I have are better off without me. My family is better off without me.

I am nothing but a sack of meat with too many woes. Fear of failures that repeat again and again.

I've lost my willingness to try again. To start again. To live again.

As I wither away I contemplate my own death. How will I achieve this final failure? Since isn't that what suicide is? Succumbing to pain and disdain. Pain of life and disdain for oneself and the life they inhabit?

Not being able to overcome oneself to see a future. To walk the path. To care.

I've lost my desire to care. I've lost my willingness to strive for new heights. I've lost my will.

If it was possible I'd will my heart to stop beating. I'd switch my brain and body off like a light and turn to dust.

But that isn't possible so I must take more drastic measures. I must spill blood in one way or another. And cause great pain to end all pain.

My pain. My failures.

I am not worthy of the rewards I have been bestowed. I will never be worthy. So I must take myself out of the running.

I will end my life, one day. When, I cannot say. Sooner rather than later, at least I hope.