And This? This Is More

Music . . .
I’m not sure what moves you or makes your body need to dance. But we all have a vibration and a beat or rhythm that makes us move.
I’m not sure if my rhythm is good or bad or if I dance well or not.
But whether I am good or not is not the point of this entry,

I think I learned something last night.
I saw something beautiful.
I saw something pure and brave and to me, this was perfect because this happened at the perfect time.

I heard music last night. I saw a show at a place called The Paramount, which I had never been to before. 
I heard songs from my youth, and I saw this live, on stage, and this was good.
Real good.

 This was good because I chose to take a different approach. I chose to look around and live in the moment instead of living in my head.
I can’t say that I do this often enough. Or to some degree, I can’t say that what I saw or how I felt last night was something I have ever dared to feel before.

And there are reasons for this,
However, reasons are not excuses and in all fairness; there are no excuses when it comes to true accountability.
So, therefore; let me start by being accountable here.

I often pay too much attention to the insults or the intrusions of inconsiderate people.
I allow my ego to creep in and degrade the moment by appearing as if I deserve a better respect.

I made the journey about me.
I never made my night about the journey.
Understand?

This is what happened with me:
I give in to old fears and insecurity.
I think that I have to stand or pose or posture in a way to defend myself or to fend off the intruders who loom to destroy or punish me for having a good time.
(As if I don’t deserve this, —Or you)

I did not do this last night.
No. I made a few wishes though,
I asked the stars for a few things.
But that is something that I cannot discuss, according to the laws of wishes on falling stars and childhood dreams.

Last night . . .
I saw the band play.
I took in the sounds and let myself feel instead of denying the truth, which that I am weak and beautifully vulnerable.
Yes . . .
Beautifully.
What else would this kind of vulnerability be, of not beautiful?
Frightening, maybe.
Scary too, of course.
But this and you are all beautiful, nonetheless.

There was no need to worry about who bumped into me, who spilled a drink on me, or who pushed their way in at the bar without using the words, “excuse me.”
And this did happen
A lot.

I have often looked around and seen the world with the contempt of envy. Or I noted my surroundings with the discomfort of believing that I am somehow unfit or misshapen to a degree that leads me to seem too awkward or look to ugly to deserve the feeling of being present.
I have lived with being me all of my life.
And to me, I swore this was me—ugly, crooked, diseased, or deformed and socially demented.

This is what I saw when I viewed my reflection. . .
But this is not what I saw last night.

I watched people dance without worry about who watched, who cared, or who danced along.
They let themselves go and they sang no matter how their voice sounded.
I like that.

I thought about the best dance of my life, which is not something that I have ever publicized and nor will I because to me, —this song and dance and location will stay where it belongs, in my heart, and this beats with the pulse of my life until my final day or until my pulse beats no more.
And even still, as long as I am a memory, this song and dance will never die.

But let’s get back to last night and the music.
The 80’s . . .
If you weren’t there, then you weren’t there.
And that’s fine. You just wouldn’t know what it was like to walk through the hallways of school and think about the songs that came on the radio.
As matter of fact, I wonder if the radio has the same meaning as it did when we were kids.
I mean . . .
Everything is a click away or a download away from being heard on demand.
I know that this was not the case for us.
We had to work for our music.
We had to go to record stores.
We bought albums.
We went home and trained ourselves to hear the changes in the songs and listen to the words until we committed them to memory.

Maybe I sound old when I say this.
Or maybe every generation has their staple or their culture or their music which defined their youth.
I caught some of the 70’s because I was born in 1972.
But my age and my moments of enlightenment were mainly in the 80’s.

And I look back now.
I think back to the songs that made an impression or had an impact or supported the maps of my history.
I think about the music that was outside my taste or my specific genre. I might not have listened to different music.
But I remember the songs of my generation.
I remember them very well, in fact.

I think about the music that meant something to the decade or how songs can rekindle an old memory that was otherwise dormant or lost.

I cannot count the times when I knew the world was out there, so-to-speak.
But I never dared to take the invitation.
There was an entire life outside of my comfort zone.
There were beautiful things all around. But I never dared to reach for the stars or embrace the shafts of sunlight, in fear that someone would come along and take this away from me.
There are places, like hills in fields which are still engrained in my mind and yet; I never dared to openly share how moving these places are to me.

One hill above all is a place that I hold deeply in my heart.
But no one else has seen this place, except for me and the people who lived on the farm with me, decades ago.
(And again, the farm and the reasons for my forced apprenticeship is a story that does not belong here)

Despite my dreams to meet and greet the invitations with a smile; I was either too uncomfortable or too afraid to dare my safety and step outside my shell.

I cannot tell you the amount of times when I held back or failed to allow myself the grace of purity. I cannot begin to count the times I refused to feel the victory of what it feels like to hear music.
I never dared to dance in a way that I’d lose myself to the moment.
I never took my mask off
Or dropped my shield.
But in fairness to the obvious—I know this was more obvious to the world and I assume that in my attempt to look or define toughness, I looked weaker than anyone and everyone else.

I cannot tell you the amount of times when ego and insecurity buried my desire and kept me from trying something new.

I think of stories that I have heard or some of the stories that you have told me, —or I think about how you were at your purist and out there, eager to laugh or smile and dance or share your happiness and somehow, someone came along to degrade you.
And you steeled for this.
You mistook your beauty for someone else reflecting their insecurity upon you; and hence, you swore this was you.
But you are wrong about a few things.
Someone came and stole your cheer by telling you that you looked like something short or anything other than beautiful.

By the way,
Nothing about you is short of beautiful.
And too, you couldn’t be uncool if you tried.
No one beats you.
Understand?
NO ONE!

Me, on the other hand. . .
I stand before you, like a boy who never learned how to dance. I never learned how to play. I was that kid who never had the new cool things. And yes, I never had pride of ownership.
I never let myself go.
I never dared to enjoy or live in the moment.
Never,

I cared too deeply about the outside controls. I cared too much about how I looked or what people assumed about me.
I had too many sins against me and too many voices in my head, voting against me, and condemning me to a sad surrender that punished me from the ground up.

I cared too much that somehow, someone was watching and looking to take a shot at me, —and as one who had been hit by the stays of insults and as someone who allowed myself to fall and be gullible; I was always afraid that someone was looking to shoot me down.
Understand?
I always assumed that someone was trying to steal my smile and make me feel like a fool for thinking that I deserved a smile to begin with.

I allowed for the robberies of “self” and they happened all too often.
I gave in to the discrepancies and the indecencies that I am too dissimilar, too weak, too stupid, too ugly and too awkward to be fit for the world, —and elsewise, I assumed that this was obvious to the world.
Everyone sees.
Everyone knows.
I assumed this because when you see yourself this way, you naturally assume that everyone else sees you in the same light.
Ugly.
Awkward.
Undesirable or worse –
Unwantable.

May I please tell you –
I have always wanted to be beautiful.
But please know that this does not mean that the entire world needs to think, feel, or believe that I am beautiful.
No.
This is not what I mean at all.
I have always wanted to look, be, and feel beautiful enough to one person, so deeply, that I knew how she saw me each time she looked at me.

I have always wanted a girl to look at me and see my soul without having to feel an ounce of fear or thinking an insecure idea that somehow, she will eventually see me.
I want to be seen and not fear that I am ugly or that I can’t dance, or that I am otherwise a tool, like the village idiot and socially unattractive.

I can tell you this much; living with this mindset took over most of my life. And it destroyed just as much too.
Both intentionally and preemptively.

Self-destruction is above all things “A Mothwr Fucker!”

I never knew how to relax and enjoy the moment.
I’m still learning.
I’m like a kid who never danced or held a harmonica before.
I never knew how to “not care” and let myself go, or let my body move, and dance without worrying who’s watching. I always cared if I looked good or stupid.

I understand that my looks and my appearance does not reflect my internal opinion or my lack of confidence. But please be advised; this is all a front.
I am often told that I walk with confidence, which is odd for me to hear and uncomfortable too because I’ve had to train myself to be impenetrable.
I have to save my own life, every day.
I’ve had to learn to live, or to go, or be and do things without the obsessive/compulsive ideas that someone is out there, lurking with the worst intentions, or that I am the prey for some kind of bully.

You . . .
I have never danced with anyone as beautiful as you.
And you . . .
you don’t see this.
Not at all.
You don’t seem to know or understand what victory it is for me to step outside of my comfort zone.
This is a dare to me.
This is a challenge; to be happy or be myself or dare to show my affection without regarding the eventual pain of rejection.

I have done this with you. . .
Better late than never, I guess.
Yet, I woke up alone this morning (again)

I have done something different without, regardless of fear or my worry about the inevitable.
I am choosing to be different so that when I see you again, you and I will let go of the weighty past and together, we can put the bullshit behind us.

I say this because I understand heartbreak and rejection. I know what pain is. I know about fear. And I know these things all too well because they are all too familiar to me.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who understands fear or pain.

Pain. Sadness. Fear. Anger. Insecurity.
These things are easy.
I can feel them without challenge.
It’s easy to be afraid.
It is easy to be sad.
Of course it is
I mean, —look around.
Look at all that’s gone wrong.
Look at my past.
Look at yours.

Look at the disappointments and the losses.
Look at the people, or the places and things that have caused you (or me) harm.
These things are easy to notice.
Fear is easy to feel. So is anger.
So is resentment.
In fact, outrage and hatred, envy, disgust, and the sad,  depressive ideas that clog the arteries of our best possible potential are all easy to locate.
All we have to do is open our eyes and bam . . .
There they are.

Be happy though.
Show love.
Be giving without conditions of return.
Be open to the music.
Dance without a care . . .
These things are simple, or at least, they sound simple.
But not to me
Not until you

I used to be afraid to smile.
I was afraid to feel joy.
I was afraid to let go of my hatred or to let down my guard.
I was afraid to be a friend or to love someone.
I was afraid to accept the truce or believe in peace because what happens if the truce was only a ploy?
Then what?
And in the end, if I accepted the offer and fell for the hoax, then what?
What happens when the pain comes back?
What happens when I am the fool again?

I was afraid to let myself “feel” the breeze or the energy of your touch because “What if?”
What if this is all a joke?
What if I show how deep I feel and then you run away, like, “No way, Jose!” and you run with your head shaking and a smirk, as if to say, “Can you believe that guy? He actually thought he had a chance with someone like me . . .”

I used to refuse to feel happiness or joy because what do I do if I step out of my box, just to turn back around and be forced to go back in?
And then what happens if I show my smile and share my time with you but it doesn;t work?
What do I do when I have to go back to being alone?
That’s pain right there.

What do I do if I laugh along and find out that I was the last to get the joke. And worse, what do I do if I laugh along to find out that I was the punchline the entire time.

I can accept the responsibility for keeping these demons alive. I know that I kept opening the old wounds and so, they never healed.
I get that.

I accept my contributions to my misery—and also, I realize that sickness is sickness.
This is true too; and while my sickness may appear invisible or mental and emotional, —sick is still sick and therefore, I have reason no to feel shame anymore.
The only thing that I can do now is change my steps to change my direction.
The only thing I can do is fully and completely give myself over to this feeling, which I have now, for you.

I would never dance like I did with you because in my life, my experience allowed fear to rob me of the victory of touch.

You . . .
I know you fail to see the depth of this because this is me and yes, I am me and you are you.
But this?
This right here?
This is me bleeding in open daylight.
See me as I am, please.
Love me.
because that’s all I need.

This is me defying a narrative in my head.
This is me “telling on myself,” because when it comes down to my life with you, —I refuse to allow my past or my fears to destroy another day. I cannot give in to my trauma, my abuse which is both internal and external, and when it comes to me breaking the chains that hold me back; I cannot allow myself to be who I was anymore.
Nor can I allow this to happen to me ever again.
Therefore, I wait.
I might not wait patiently.
But still, I wait.
I am waiting for you.
I am waiting for our turn to dance.

You showed me proof that there are reasons worth stepping out of my box.
And I might never get what I want and my dream might never come true, —but I won’t ever know unless I try.

Whether it is now, tomorrow, in this life or the next—I am going to marry you.
I am going to hold true to my authentic self and show you my dreams and listen to yours.

And we?
We are going to dance a slow dance on the beach to music that only we can hear.
(Together)

And I don’t care how I look to anyone else.
I don’t care how I seem.
I don’t care who thinks I’m beautiful or ugly or laughs at me like I’m a joke.

All I know is no one on this Earth makes me feel like you do.
And until I have you completely and until you are mine—I will wait because settling for less is no longer an option for me.

I have a few songs that I would like to hear when we dance.
I won’t say what they are until we dance to them.
I suppose this is like making a wish on a falling star or before blowing out your candles on a birthday cake.
I close my eyes.
I take a deep breath.
I make my wish
But I can’t tell you or anyone what this is, because then my wish might not come true

So to you Above, and to you The Universe, The Great and Ultimate Mother in the Sky, or to you, God the Father, and to The son of Man, to The Holy Spirit, and to all the powers that be:

I am putting this in your hands.
I know that my past can make me seem unworthy—and should I be unworthy, then I understand your reasons for my punishment.
But—
If I am allowed one more chance at love, I promise this time I will give her everything. I will do this, even if this leaves me with nothing because it has taken me 53 long years to realize that my love is not mine to keep.
My love cannot survive or live and breathe because my love means nothing if I do not know how to give it away.

Amen ~

P.S.
If I can ask The Powers Above for anything else, and if I am denied my first request and I am to be alone and without her, then please  . . .
Let her know that she is beautiful.
Let her know and see her truth,
Let her know this, not because I say she is beautiful or ask for this.
No . . .
Let her know this because it is true.

No one can hold a candle to her or be as meaningful or as beautiful-
not even the candle I’d light at the Church at Point Lookout comes close to the way she shimmers or glows so beautifully.

I know this

Good morning, my love.

One day –

Soon

I hope

“Just pay me back with 1,000 kisses”
or 10,000
whichever comes first.