So, What’s it Gonna Take?

I have designed this place for years now.
I tell you this because this place means the world to me, even if it’s not real or real to the rest of the world. But for all this is worth, this place is real to me.
And so are you.
I have created this little spot in my head like a studio or workshop to help maintain my sanity.
I needed this. And, I needed you too. Hence, this is why I’m here.

I had to build a place for myself, even if only in my mind.
I did this so that I could find somewhere safe to be myself and open up.

Nothing means more to me than this or you. However, I cannot say the road has been smooth or easy. No, I have fallen more often that I can count.
At the same time, I still come here to sit with you, no matter how many spills or falls.
Either way, I can crash and burn a thousand times, and still, I will always come here to share myself as openly as I can.

I said this to myself out loud and long ago.
I understand that humility means being honest and modesty is the absence of pride.
I say this because if I am to become the person I choose to be, then this is who I want to be.
Modest and humble.
Free from pride.
Free from ego.
Free from “the bondage of self.”

I suppose the hardest part is seeing the truth. . . .
The problem with the light is that it exposes all the things you never wanted to see.
Understand?

Or like it said in the scriptures, “the demons avoided the light because the light exposed the darkness of their deeds.”
I get that. I get that this is why people run away from themselves.
But like I was told, no matter how fast or how far we run; wherever you go there you are.
No one can avoid the truth forever.

For example, the same thing can be said about the fear I have when I see myself in the mirror.
One could offer that I am afraid because the reflections I see can grow, mutate, and magnify my inaccuracies or my so-called flaws and lead me towards an inaccurate view of how I see myself.

I understand why we close our eyes or turn away.
I do.
I understand why I find it easier to see my imperfections or the misshaped features of my eyes. And I get how my ears are not shaped the same or my smile is imperfect enough to make me shy.
No . . .
I have never been comfortable with my looks. I’ve always struggled to look in the mirror because I did not like my reflection. And yes, I understand how long it takes to get ready when you are inundated with overthinking — and so, you try and get ready, and you try on an outfit, and then you try on another, and another. And next, after fifteen different changes and fifteen different disappointments, you find yourself, back in the original outfit that you began with.

I can tell you about this process but more, I’d like to express the discomfort and the defeated feeling that comes over me because I am unpleased and dissatisfied with how I look.

No one asks to be the ugly kid.
No one wants to be unsightly or regarded as mute or mediocre.
Or worse, no one wants to be the “friend” or the tag-along. Above all, no one wants to be invisible, as in unnoticed, uncared for, and unimportant or otherwise, deleted like an unwanted file–vanished from the hard drive never to be heard from again.

But this is life when I am caught in the emotional mindset.
This is what happens when I give in to my overthinking and irrational concepts.

In fairness –
I never liked my posture. I never assumed that I, or someone like me, would be seen as desirable or know that someone out there, beautiful as you are, would ever see me as valid. Such is life when we look through the lenses of our deceived perception.
Such are the inaccurate truths when we give in and believe our insecurities.

I used to think, “I guess this is just me,” and I’d assume that I was intended to be this way.
The birds are needed. The swans are beautiful.
But all things need to eat, same as the predators, same as the scavengers, and same as the maggots and worms.

Do you see?
Do you understand this at all?
Or is my honesty too raw or uncomfortable?

I often think about a line from the movie “The Departed,” when one of the main characters said to his love interest, “If we’re not gonna make it, the it’s got to be you who gets out.”
“He told her, I’m not capable.”
Then he said, “I’m fucking Irish. I’ll deal with something being wrong for the rest of my life.”
I can relate to this.
I relate to the understanding of flaws or that rather than change or advance, I can relate and understand the sad surrender to the idea which says, “this is it.”

This is my life.
But this is not it and the life I’ve had is not the life I want for myself anymore.
No.
I want more.

I know that my place in this life is beyond the halfway mark. And I know what happens with wasted time. I know how irretrievable the sands in the hourglass can be once they’re gone.
Same as you know this, I know what it feels like to lose a moment or wish we could rewind the clock or re-say words that came out the wrong way.
I know all about regret.
So, let me stop this train here.
Let me remove the word regret from my vocabulary. Going forward, let me fight with all of my heart and refuse to surrender this place in my heart, which I have built so that I could create this and share it all with you.

Let me change this tune and sing a new song.
Let me start over.
Alone or not. Good or bad, right or wrong.
Let me start now.
By myself.
I do this now, here, and on my own, under my own volition, and heartily under my own free well.

Hello dear world.
I hope you are all good and well.
I have no more time to slander or fight the fools.

I have made my share of mistakes and, of course, I have faced the persecution.
I have been executed a thousand times and been deemed undeserving.
I do not deny this.
Yet, somehow, I stand here both accused and convicted, judged and sentenced and crucified as well.
Maybe I am foolish for being where I am.
Maybe I am crazy.
Or maybe this is the bravest thing I could do –
Show up . . .

I might be fighting with a handicap, but at least I stand here.
At least I’m willing.
At least I scream at the skies and shout to defy the stars.
At least my heart beats and I still feel love, desire, dreams, and passion.
At least I feel this because as beaten as I am or have been, no one has beaten this out of me.
At least not yet.

I have something else to say, which I am leaving here with you.
I leave this here, in trust, so that you will both understand and feel what beats in my heart.

What I love about you is more than what you assume.
And yes, I have a past. We all do.
In fact, my past is what accentuates your beauty
(and makes me love you even more).
I have past experiences and so do you.
Therefore, I see a change coming our way.

I don’t think that I’ll ever get back there, to L.A. I mean.
Then again, I think my California dreams are gone now.
And that’s okay.
I’d say those dreams left me around the same time that I left my previous world.
All of this has changed for me.
This stems back, a little more than two years ago.
And maybe one can say that I am a slow learner.
But to them I’d say, at least I’m learning.
At least I’m trying.

My days at Marina Del Mar or the walks along Venice Beach or standing on the pier are in the past.
I remember watching the locals fishing for fish that were inedible. I laughed too because the signs along the pier said, “don’t eat the fish.”
Those days and those dreams are behind me.
And so be it, I guess.

I liked the hills. I liked the Hollywood sign. I liked the first class treatment and the business class flights.
I liked the airport in Burbank too, which was small and cozy and certainly better than the mass confusion and interpersonal tragedies at Los Angeles International Airport.

Either way, my past has become my past.
I understand this now.
However, the uncertainty of my future is unknown, of course.
And I’m still trying to find my way.
Frightened as ever.
I swear—

I come here because this is the best place for me to talk to you.
We can speak here.
No harm or foul and above all, no judgment whatsoever.
I am not here to satisfy the grammar or literary snobs.
No one else exists to me (when I’m here with you).

But before I go, I have to tell you –
Sometimes, it’s enough to say “Okay, I get it!” and then I somehow manage to get out of bed.
I know what it takes and how hard it is to get up, regardless of the hour in the morning or the lack of sleep.

Oftentimes, we fail to see the justice in our discipline.
We fail to credit ourselves and recognize what it takes to get up, no matter what, and dress up to fit the part.

I am not an actor, and I will never be one.

But I have acted in the past. I have acted “as if,” so-to-speak.
I’ve certainly pretended before.
I lived more than one life and spoke out of both sides of my mouth as if to admit that I have been two-faced before.
Yes. I am guilty as charged.

I do not subscribe to the saying “fake it until you make it” anymore because this is not true to me.

No, and in fairness to my truth, I faked it but I never made it.
I tried.
But being fake makes for a fake existence and no amount of pretending can make my lies real anymore.
I know this with all of my heart.
Not to mention that the plastic smiles are less appealing to me than real ones, toothless or not. 

I am no longer drawn in by the surface level or the outer layers of so-called beauty anymore.
No. It has taken me a long time to say this.
However, I am done subscribing to something beautiful which is not beautiful to me.
But you?
You on the other hand?

I want something more — and I say more as if to be enamored by the thrill of what it feels like to want “more” from someone like you.

I want more than just more.
I want to see someone and find them so desirable, regardless of what anyone else says or sees and yes, that’s you.
I see this and regardless of you or your insecure comments, I see the perfection of our imperfections and wish that I could teach you — or if anything at all, then please, allow me to show you otherwise.
You are scarless and flawless to me.
I mean this and I see this, no matter what you see.

I have said this before, and I will say this again.
My love has curves and imperfections and perhaps my love opposes the commercialized versions of some kind of contrived beauty — but at least my love is my love.
And to me she is beautiful.

As for her, or you (at least to me) you are designed perfectly for me.
I see you.
Even when I cannot see you or talk to you or hear your voice.
I see you still. I still hear you.
And I will always imagine you.

You are scrumptious and tasty.
You are desirable enough to make me mad, like a crazy man, or hungry like a hunter who hasn’t eaten in an entire lifetime. 

And yes. I am hungry.
I am thirsty too – unquenchably thirsty to the point where I would beg for you, so that I can drink you in and make you mine.
I reject the symbolic rituals of somebody “pretty” because I want more.
I am equally tired of the so-called trendy passion or forced assumptions about what beauty is because to me, my version of beauty belongs to me and me alone.
No one can change me or take my love away or break this spell that you have over me.
No one . . .
Or better, I can sum this up and explain that my version of beauty is you.
Yes. YOU!

Send me your body.
Send me your so-called fears.
Show me the insecure portions of your body and allow me to redefine them with love.
Allow me to kiss you.
Let me show you the truth of who you are in a style of resurrecting passion.
Please –
Let me do this in a way that will crush your previous notions and thrill your physical senses.
I want this, every day, and from now until the hour of your death, or for the rest of your life, or longer.

And further, I detest and reject any of the lifelong tragedies or the misrepresented bullshit that suggested you are anything else but exotic.
I reject this because you are erotic beyond compare.
Nothing about you could ever be ugly to me.
Nothing at all.

See?

I have learned. And therefore, I know this now.
I have learned that beauty can be ugly, or as it were, Lucifer, himself, was one of God’s most beautiful Angels before being cast out and sent down to reflect his truth 

Therefore, I am not able to recreate my beauty, nor can I say that I am beautiful.
I understand this.
I cannot resent my ugly truths anymore.  
But more, I want to reconstruct the resurrection of what it means to be beautiful to me.

I can be ugly for the rest of my life, which is fine.
I’ll live with that for the rest of my life and be okay, if I have you.
But this is not about me.

Whereas, you . . .
You see imperfection.
I see examples and curves and features of life that not only withstand or withstood the world, but alas, somehow, I am the one who is blessed enough to see you clearly.

I am the chosen or even if only momentary, I have been chosen and become the selected person to touch, taste, caress and admire you.
I want to do this, section by section, part by part, and inch by inch –
entirely.

Your breath against my neck compliments the features of my dreams. And you or your body, or you as you slide next to me between the sheets — all I can say is this is all I’d need.
You are all I need to see, think, or feel for the rest of my life and be fine with whatever comes my way.

I am like a child in some ways, happy to see you, and eager to play or be playful enough to laugh at life and not be afraid to dream or dare or say funny things.

But more, than all the above –
I am enslaved by your kiss and the softness of your lips.

I am hypnotized by the way your body lays beside me.
I can watch you, naked, next to me.
I will never get tired of this, you, your body, or how you appear to me from head to toe.
I admire you. No, wait. I adore and worship you.

But ah, the feel of you and the sense of your skin is heaven to me.
You or the sensation that comes over me when I am aroused is enough to make me like a wild and unstoppable beast —
I have to say this. And please know, I cannot resist you.
I cannot stop myself.
I can’t help it.
I cannot let go of my dreams or forget that I have wanted this from you, for always.
I just can’t stop.
I think about the way it feels when the extension from my body enters the gates of your seas, wet as ever of course, soaked and dripping.
I wish I was there or you were here.
Make love to me.
Please?

I have been a fool.
I have made mistakes.
But above all else, I will wait for as long as it takes to have you “as mine” and make love to you, from now until the hour of my death

Amen