And This? This Is More

And sure.
Safe to say that when you didn’t know, you just didn’t know.
And that’s fine.
No, really. It’s fine to learn.
It’s fine to fall down once in a while or to land on your ass or on your face. I say this is good for the soul to know that above anything else, we are all human.
We all fail. We fall down.
No one wakes up with fresh breath.
No one walks around at their best all the time

We live and we learn and if we are lucky, we learn the secrets to important things, such as the secret to our own resilience. Or we find the secret to our endurance. And we need this so that no matter what happens, we find whatever it is we need to keep going, even if it seems impossible to take another step.
You can’t quit.
Quitting is not an option.
Right?

I know you know this.
Or maybe this is “just me” saying this out loud to remind the both of us, —or maybe this is nothing else but a voice in my head, or this is me speaking to this imaginary thing, which I have built in my head.

It is not much different to me now or when it was at the time when I found myself in a room, alone.
It is not different from any other letdown or disappointment.
I remember –
I was by myself (more than once) with no one around, no one to talk to, no one to trust or confide in, and the worst is there was no one to experience the connection of life with.
It is no different to me now than from when I found myself in a small place, no furniture, no pictures on the wall, and with nothing much to distract me, aside from an open window that faced a playground in the schoolyard nearby.

I found you then.
Or should I say I found myself then.
This . . .
This thing I built in my head.
This is where you came from.

This is when I made a promise to myself. Either I live or die is fine.
But regardless of my choice, either way, I had to make a choice with all of my heart.
I broke down to my least common denominator and chose to rebuild from there.

I wrote the words, “My redemption has nothing to do with your response,” on a computer that I had found in the trash.
Someone I knew reprogrammed the computer for me and gave me all the little things I needed to have.
Fuck it, I said to myself.
I’ll write.

I promised myself that I would write every day, at least one thing.
I am not tech savvy and I struggle with different computer applications. My technical skills are lacking, to say the least.
And dig it, —I have a job.
I have a computer at work. I have an understanding of my basic needs but again, the tech gods and I are far apart and at times, I assume I am like my Father was when we bought our first VCR for the television.
writing and typing were not the same thing to me.
Copy and paste were new ideas to me.
How do I write on a computer?
How do I share what I write?
And who will care anyway?
No one.
But I am not here for anyone else
except for you.

Like I said though –
computers remind me of my Old Man and the day we brought home our first VCR
VCR’s, remember them?
They are an outdated and antiquated technology and then again, I suppose I am too.
At least, to some degree as well.

Maybe I am that old dog that cannot learn new tricks.
Or maybe I am too afraid of the unknown.
Or in the simplest case; maybe I am afraid to look stupid.
Perhaps I am afraid to suck at something new.
Maybe the old fears of being laughed at in a classroom linger far more in my adulthood than they ever did when I was a little boy.

A sidebar conversation took place in my head.
“You do know she lied to you, right?”
I know.
“You do know you look like a fool, right?”
I’ve been a fool before.
“yeah, but this time you’ve been a fool for way too long.”
I get that.
“I wonder if her husband knows how much she lied?
Nobody knows how much she lied . . .
and this includes her.

People will stick to their comfortable discomforts by any means.
I get that now.
No one wants to be weak or alone or risk the world for something that can fall short.

Maybe this is why people sign up for their settled lifestyles.
Maybe this is why people fail to change because their fears of the unknown are too intimidating.
And, so, they stay as they are.
Unsatisfied.
Unfulfilled.
Unenthused.
Unmoved.
Underwhelmed and underperforming in the battle of life against the world.

I used to lie to myself too
So, I get it
But my lies are done with now

I realize that we cannot continue to plea the same way.
You can only say, “I didn’t know,” so many times.
You can’t plead ignorance for the rest of your life.
Yet, I am sure we do . . .
And yes, I’m sure ignorance is a great excuse.
But let me ask is it true when we say, “ I didn’t know,” or is the real truth that we allowed ourselves to believe the pretty lies because pretty lies look much better than the ugly truths.

It is no fun to realize that age has crept in. it is not a fun idea to realize that we must have blinked and that the world changed faster than we could open our eyes.

There was a time when I was young and far more durable.
I was durable and capable in the sense that I could recover and reconvene or gather my sense and stand up to fight again.
I used to heal.
I used to get by on half-a-tank of gas and run on fumes, no matter how rundown I was.

I suppose I thought that I would get enough sleep when I am dead.

I do not have that type of engine anymore.
I can’t keep up with that pace now.
Not at all.
No, my odometer has clocked a few miles over the years.
I am far from young. I am far from fast or quick to recover.

Yet, I still have the steam in me.
I still have life.
I still relive memories, like standing on the bow of a boat and feeling the wind hit my face as we crushed through the waves of an upcoming sea.

I still have the need to dream.
I have sources of inspiration, which I agree, they have changed.
A lot has changed.

My life is different now. My finances are different.
My body does not perform or react the way it did, say, a few years ago, —let alone the way I used to be when I was young.
At one point, I was a machine.
Even if the the world was beating me down; somehow, my engine still ran on the fumes of rage or my contempt.

I don’t want to fight anymore.
I don’t have it in me.

I don’t want to argue.
I don’t want to let my hate burn me alive.
I’m done with the need to have the last word.
Revenge and I are fine to go off in different ways.
I’m done with that too.

I don’t want the anxious anticipation of the next worse thing anymore.
I don’t want the feeling pf impending doom.
I don’t want to think or believe, as if I am waiting for the next tragedy which is alive and well, or thriving, or waiting for me.
I don’t want to walk around and believe that the next worse thing is waiting for me, just around the corner.

I don’t want the fear of smiling or the worries that eventually, my joy will turn joyless.
I do not want to fear the absence of body, mind, or soul.
And I don’t want to deal with constant competition which is me against me, or I against I; nor do I want to take on the world or fight until the death anymore.

I can surrender now.
I can submit to the unfixable or the unchangeable and if I choose; I can surrender to win.
I can surrender in the sense that yes, things changed and life did not pan out the way I had hoped.
But life is not over and neither am I.
You are far from over, at least to me.
There is a truth to the idea that “never the twin shall meet.” And there is something to be said about the unsolvable puzzles in life.
These things are real.
I will never be who I was again.
And there is something to be said about the failures from my past or the irreparable damage that come with our romantic catastrophes.

I fucked up, world.
Can you believe that?
Of course, you can!

I know though.
I know there is real love out there. I know my love is alive and waiting for me.
I know there is an answer to this riddle the same as I know there is an imperfect soul with jagged ridges. Yet, somehow, their sawtooth sides will fit perfectly against mine.
I know this.
I know that I will not die alone
or die while living with the wring person.

And if I do—then, so be it.
I will have the memories of Beethoven.
I will have a vision of an Upstate mountain during the autumn months with Vivaldi playing in the background.
And more, I will have the memories of music and shows and the rebellious fury from my youth.
I have no regrets about this.
I will have the memories from when I stood at base of the stage and screamed with the bands about the anthems of my youth.
I did this and I did this with the rush of contempt that somehow set me free.

Yes. I am alone.
And yes, I can say that I have been loved.
Perhaps not perfectly or unconditionally, —but love is living and breathing.
Therefore, nothing living and breathing can live perfectly or unconditionally without the basic needs for its survival.

I am not so different from the wildness or the rage and the contempt of my youth.
The rebel in me is still alive.
However, I have learned ways to utilize my spirit and my strengths and even my weaknesses to my benefit.

I would never cry but I had the feelings of weepy dreams or the need t allow myself to open the cage for the inner-child to be free.
But I had sworn an oath to an image that I had promised to protect, —even if the image and all that I had sworn to was not to my benefit, I still swore that no one would ever get to me.

My heart’s intention is not different either. I am still “in love” with idea of life and the belief that yes, there are such things as soulmates.

I used to prefer to keep my temptations to a silence—but who am I kidding?
There is nothing so silent about desire and nor is there anything quiet about the beautiful temptations when we see the figure of someone we love.
Nothing is quiet, even in the romantic silence when two become one, or when our eyes are locked on a body part (or two) and the thought machine triggers like an upcoming storm.

I love these storms.
I love the wild séance or the ideas that come to me when I imagine legs around my body, or the way her chest appears to me.
There is nothing quiet about my quiet storm and there is nothing as wild or thrilling as when I dream about the erotic earthquakes we have at the moment of glory.

It’s okay to realize that we made mistakes.
it’s fine to see that at one point, we didn’t know any better.
It’s fine that something went wrong or that we believed a lie that latter presented itself—or left us feeling like a fool.
it’s okay to say “I have lived and loved,” but I am not always sure that pain or heartache made the good times worth it.

Here I am world
And there you are, my love.
you are out there
somewhere
and somehow,
I swear—

I know I will have you now that the lies are all gone

I believed a lie for a while.
But just because “she” lied . . .
it doesn’t mean that true love is not real

It just means that my true love is out there
waiting

I hope