And Then What?

Of course, I know what it means
to lose myself in excess.
I have done this and tried for more,
and found myself on the hunt for excess
until, of course,
someone told me
that I was
excessive.

I have been born and blamed
and with all of my heart,
I am ashamed, and I say that yes,
I agree . . .
It was He who said
that He had come
to give sight to the blind
and to take from those who can see.

But as much as I deny
what I have done
or no mater how I try to spin the truth
lies are still lies
no matter how attractive they may seem.

It is fair to say that I was never truly blind;
therefore, it was I who could see
and truly,
it was me who had sinned.
Yes. I know this
and sinfully,
I record that I despised
and I responded and hated
and I defended myself
and rationalized my ways
and sought after the angles.

I did this like a thief
sneaking in the night because otherwise,
I swore that I could never play the game straight
and win.
I swore that I would never have anything
nor could I have something so wonderful
or glorious that I, or should I say
“someone like me” could ascertain
or understand the visceral feeling of joy
and hold this in my hands
and ah, the cause of life and the ruler of peace;
the theft of sorrow and bringer of peace.

I admit to you and to me
the ideas of my so-called trained
and misunderstood inefficiencies.
I confess here and now
that I am guilty as charged.
I admit to this
as well as my wrongful assumptions
and the ideas of inequality because, to me,
I had never seen me as equal,
— nor had I ever seen myself as deserving
or capable; and so, therefore,
I say ode to the self-pity
and to the pity-party
and ode to those who cry out
or feel sorry for themselves.

Keep crying
Nobody cares.

Ode to the leader of all excuses
and ode to those who are like me
or to those who wrongfully believed
and stood wrongfully accused
and believed in their traumatic bonds
and saw themselves as ugly
or
unwanted, and therefore
their selfishness flourished
like a weed and suffocated
their best possible potential.

Ode to the misbelief that we are
or that we were somehow diseased
or undesirable and so,
ode to the self-doubt
or ode to the rise of the shame-filled mercury
that rose in the heat
of our internal dispute and boiled over
and caused us to lose out minds.

Ode to our excuses
and ode to our rationalized dilemmas
and ode to the reasons why I cheated
or why you stepped out, just the same
and ode to the fears
of the imaginary monsters
that hid like skeletons in the closet
or monsters beneath my bed.

Ah, and to you
the idea of self
and to you
the ego
and the hidden cracks
in my porcelain defense
and to you,
to those who dare to relate
or to those who dare to search and be honest
and yes, to those who live
in some kind of self-preserved
or sorrowful existence, and so,
to you, or to us:
I say to us all –
beware the path of self-destruction

Be mindful of the lies
that are left behind on our soul
for they dig a self-degrading hole
and steer us down a degenerative path
downward, like a line on a medical chart
dying slowly as we live and breathe.

I get it . . .
looking around
asking for help without using words
and wondering
Why doesn’t anybody hear me?
How come nobody answers?

Doesn’t anyone see?
Does anybody care?

Or is that it?
Nobody cares.

So, keep going.
Right?
Keep building
and keep fighting, and that’s fine
but by all means — stop being selfish
and stop being hurtful
or self-preserving,
and stop with this self-absorbed bullshit
that does nothing else
but digs the hole deeper
and leaves us sick
or worse, stuck
and alone.

No one wants to hear about our excuses
and no one wants to hear the reasons
and no one else has the time to come along
and save our lives.

Ode to you
and to me
and to the confession of co-dependency.
Ode to all of this
and to how one cannot live
without the other.

The yin cannot live
without the yang
and the ongoing battles
cannot survive without
the two sides
at war with one another. . .

And,
so . . .

It is time.

The fight is over
and while I am not strong nor good enough
by any means,
I choose to resign
and I reserve what is left
of my strength — or my goodness
to walk away
to start again,
and to the best of my ability
I will do what I can
to answer for the stray bullets
of missed targets that wrongfully tagged
the innocent bystanders
who did nothing else
but try to love
or dared to help.