All For More (Or Less)

I was thinking about the way we speak with each other. I was thinking about the words we use and their value to us.
Or more to the point, I was about how we invest in the words we say or hear.
Then I started to think about our selective hearing. Or maybe it would be better for me to tick to the plan and explain about my own selective hearing.

I was thinking about the most important and meaningful three words in our English language
I was thinking about words like, I love you.
Or how about the words, I need you

Or what does it mean to you when someone says, “You mean the world to me!”
What does any of these words mean when someone says these things and yet, we struggle to feel them or believe their words are true.

I can recall pleading with someone to love me back, —and while they told me how they appreciated me, at the same time, I knew this meant that they did not feel what I felt nor wanted me the way that I wanted them.
I know about heartbreak. I do.
I know about the pain that comes with rejection and the ongoing thoughts that never stop. I have been imprisoned like this before.
I know what it means to be trapped by my thoughts, which lead us to invest in the idea that somehow, something about us (or me) was not worthy, or enough.

I can say yes, I risked my world for someone.
And that someone was dishonest. And their dishonesty killed me. So did their rejection.
So did the realization that I was only a fool.
I can say that I was about to enter something which I swore was the only meaningful thing that mattered to me—but in the end, there was nothing but the realization that all of this was a lie.
I was a lie.
And so was the fantasy.

And that’s fine.
No, really.
It’s okay,
Lies are lies.

Going back and forth or trying to recreate or relitigate what happened will never satisfy the rejections or the insecure notions that trigger my fears and leave me worried.

It is time.
It is time for me to start tunnelling out of this place. I have been here too long and I have lost too much.
It is time.
it is time for me to move on or if anything, it is time for me to move forward.
I cannot live in the prisons of my past. I cannot continue the old arguments or dissect my thoughts. I understand the mind is always looking to find an answer or to seek accountability. But no answer will be enough.
No answer will settle the unfairness of being hurt.

I cannot change what took place and nor can I change facts simply because I did not like my outcomes.

Now.
It is time.

What are the feelings that degrade us most?
And what words could redeem us or rebuild us so that we could stand up once more and feel better?

I have to go back to my five senses. I have to go back to the glory of touch. And I have to consider the sights, the smells, the touch, the sounds, and the taste of my freedom.

Yes.
I want to hear the words, I love you.
But only one voice can deliver this in a way that the words would be truthfully healing.
I want to experience touch in a way that I can feel the connection of skin.
I want to smell her essence and breathe in deep so that I can keep her with me. Or like, say, how we take on the smell of someone we love after hugging them tightly.
I want this.
No, wait.
I need this.
I need her the way the moonlight needs to find its way through my window. I need her the way the tides need to move the oceans, and remind us that the world is alive.
I need her more than the air I breathe because to me, she is the air I breathe and to me, she is all I have ever wanted.
Only, in fairness, I was too afraid and too shallow to dare the depths of her heart. But ah, she is more.
She is everything.
She can be undressed, made up, fresh from sleep, or in any condition and as I’d view her; I know that no one could ever come close to how she makes me feel.
No one.
No one excites me like her.
No one touches me like her.
Nothing about her could be matched or cheapened by comparing her to anyone else. And when I say her . . .
of course; I mean this is you.

I want to taste the flavor of the world’s most special kiss and yet, I know that no one else can deliver this flavor to me, —except for you.
No one else can speak to me and vibrate the waves in my spine and make me weak, simply because I felt the quivering sensation that overcomes my body—and no, no one can do this to me.
No one in the world, except for you.

I refuse the motto or the idea that I have studied you. Yet, I can say that I have memorized you, your curves, the way your smile curls, or the way your hips move in my mind for days.

I have seen you in my dreams and I have known you for lifetimes, yet, there is the distance between us, which is here and now and of course, as per our situation and my location, —I realize that where I am in both a figurative, literal, and emotional sense is cased off, or, imprisoned, or distant in some way. I am this because of my choices and my whereabouts or maybe this is fate’s way of putting you in my path by placing you in my heart, —either way, just know this.
Know this as clearly as you know that there is a moon above at nighttime and the sun will never cease to shine, —and know that wherever I am and no matter my distance, I am never far from you.
My heart pulses, as it be a part of you.
I dream of you.
I think of you.
And more and more, I love you.

It is unsafe, of course, for me to speak like this.
Especially here, where I am now.
It is unsafe of course, for me to be a man and show my weakness or my tenderness because the natives around me are unfriendly at best, and yes, their interpersonal cannibalism is ferocious and insatiable.
I see this all the time.
Weak men eaten alive for being vulnerable
(or foolish)

I am thinking about the ability to touch or the way your skin feels at my fingertips. I am thinking about the healing power of sound or how words can take away the pains of all the millenniums in Purgatory.
I am thinking about our fears too and the fascination we seem to have with the unfortunate. Or better, I think about how we pay attention to what could go wrong instead of living in the moment and enjoying what’s going right.

I agree.
There is a coldness around me. I agree that locations can derail our focus and we could easily be misled by the ugliness of our surroundings.

This is my prison . . .

I remember my first trip down the corridor. I remember being cuffed to steel rails and the loss of my freedom. Remember the ugly truth which creamed when the cell doors rolled shut and how they reminded me of my losses.
I remember the blame, which shifted because once the cell door closed and once the status of my freedom settled in, —I realized that no one stole my freedom. No one took my space or my time or my rights to go outside or witness the moonlight.
I am the one who abandoned the fields of sunflowers or ignore the ladybug dreams which otherwise came as tales from my youth, that good fortune is real, but my thoughts tricked me and taught me otherwise

No one took this from me.
No.
I surrendered my freedom. I surrendered my rights.
I destroyed myself far before the judges banged their gavels.
I nearly surrendered my entire life to a trade that was not worthy of my attention.
But not anymore.
it is time.

What does it mean when someone says, “I love you,” if there is no love for yourself?
What does it mean to mean the world to someone when you mean nothing to yourself?

I spent too many years, investing in the rejection or the worries that something about me is off-putting, or unsightly, or worse; I spent much of my freedom, encased in the idea that I am not enough. I built walls instead of bridges.
I never thought that I was enough, nor would I ever be enough, —and so, in short, I wasn’t enough and nor could I ever be enough because this was my belief, —and therefore, this was my truth.

It is time.
this is not to you, per se.
No, this is more to me than for anyone else.

I started to remove the rocks from the earth on the floor of my prison cell. I started to dig my tunnel, which was both freeing and challenging.
I noticed that my endurance was off.
I noticed that I was too tired too quickly because the task ahead of me was too intimidating because I was too invested in the evasive outcome that perhaps I am too imprisoned to ever be free again.

But it is time.
I want more.
I want this.
I want you.

I want it all
And yes, I will do everything within my power to make this happen.
The lies of my past will lay in my history.
But you—

You are my future and my future needs to be set free.

The guards came by last night.
They saw me trying to cover my tracks.
“Try all you want,” said the beast to me.
“I’ll always know where to find you.”

How, I asked the beast.
“Because I am you.” he told me.
“I know you better than you know yourself.”

Maybe he does.
But what I know is this, —I want more and I am willing to go to any lengths to get it.

“She will never love you the way you want her to.”
How do you know?
“I don’t . . . but I know how to slip into your fears, to keep you guessing, and to keep you from letting go of the pains that hurt you most.”

You’ll have to fight me for it.
“No. son. You’ll have to fight yourself for this. I won’t need to do anything”

Okay then

So be it.
The fight is on . . .

You are out there, waiting for me.
I know it.