Good morning, my valued enemy.
I would not know what to do without you.
However, and in the meantime, I figured I would send you this note
just to keep the peace . . ..
The winds are changing today and the rain might fall, which I assume will throw off the scent of our dogs.
This means you and I will have to hunt each other on sight.
But for now, the front lines are just the front lines. Morning is morning.
But there is quiet at the forefront, which is odd for a battleground.
Just so you know, I am thinking about us or you or the way life goes.
I am thinking about the way hopes and dreams can often separate from the path we choose.
Plans are plans and yet, somehow, we find ourselves elsewhere.
We lost our way, somehow, and here we are, almost lost, but not really.
We are almost gone and drifting too far off course to return.
At the same time, this is not lost.
We know where we are and we know the roads that return home.
But even the common and the beaten paths seem foreign to me and less traveled after a while.
I think about the people who love to argue. They live to fight and fight to live.
They thrive on this.
I think about how they shoot first and ask questions later or how they find themselves in the heat of battle.
Always . . .
I think about this and the people who live this way.
I think about their love for a wild addiction to the process of drama, not to mention how chaos often makes more sense to them than peace because at least they know what to expect.
There is no fear of the unknown when you expect the unexpected.
right?
This is a game of cat and mouse.
isn’t it?
I have often wondered if I would know what to do when all goes quiet.
I have read about men who lived in inside prisons and how they endured the worst kinds of solitary confinement.
Some people go crazy. Some die. Some endure. Some kill themselves.
Some push a needle in their veins. Some drink a tolerable poison and some dose with a pill that gives the something else to think about.
Some people maintain and some find ways to improve, as if to find the value of every minute, regardless of how depraved or deprived their minutes may be.
Some come out better.
But what would we be if we were better?
If you are not dead, then you are not dead.
This is true. Of course.
And if it what Nietzsche said is true, “that which does not kill you makes you stronger,” then perhaps you and I are stronger than we think.
Or maybe it is our strength that wears us down and makes us weak.
Who knows?
I am thinking about the comfort in chaos or the understanding of chaotic things. Take for example, understanding the constant volume of anger or pain and how absence of them are uncomfortable. The fear of their silence is because our anticipation of their return is incredible.
I am thinking about the way people can get used to unthinkable things.
Pain and lonsomeness and sadness included.
I think about how this can become common and almost like happenstance, as if “this is just life!”
And, so, his is how things go —and therefore, to live or to believe differently would simply be unthinkable.
I think about the warriors of old or the soldiers who never came home the same.
I think about the battles they faced, which became an everyday thing
They fought for peace and lived in the opposite regard.
And then what?
What happens when the battles are gone?
What happens when the fires go out?
What comes after the wars are settled and all that remains are invisible scars and unseeable wounds?
What happens to the traumatized after the traumatic moments go away?
Their wars are over, but the wounds are rooted deeply enough to rot the mind with their moral injuries.
What becomes of this now?
There are different kinds of war.
look at love for example.
This is a war too.
I talk top you about this because I am thinking of a teacher from my youth. He was a man who saw action in Vietnam.
His time in the battlefields was not all that long ago or far behind when we knew him.
And some of the kids knew about this.
And some of them knew what happened when they slammed books on the floor in the middle of class.
The mean kids did this while the teacher was writing on the blackboard.
And they knew how the loud bang made him jump, or react, which was enough to make the mean kids laugh.
What do they know about Claymore mines or how they blow people apart and tear their legs off?
What do they know about being shot at?
Or do they know what it’s like to have to lurk in the darkness of a jungle?
What do they know about walking the point with a troop while one of their buddies hits a tripwire?
And just like that, BAM!
A bouncing Betty blows their friend apart.
I connect these two, the teacher and his invisible wounds and the people who have trauma and battles from their past.
I do not judge wars by their size or casualties.
Not at all.
However, I connect their reactions and wonder about their ability to find peace, —if there is such a thing.
I am thinking now . . .
I am thinking about the two of us and the way people walk in and out of our life.
I am thinking about the brainwashed bullshit that we tell ourselves, so that we can survive, and live to survive another day.
I know about survival mode. You do too.
I know about the self-fulfilled prophecies and the self-destruction that comes when comfort is strange and even the chaos loses its charm.
Too much, I say.
Too much blood and guts and fighting and too much damage.
Too much blame and shame. Too many innocent bystanders and too many innocent casualties.
Too many is too many,
And too much is too much.
But this is more than too much and more than excessive.
This is more than too many.
This is the “in and out” and the rise and fall of a chest.
Do you understand?
This is the reciprocal breathing of codependency.
Someone has to exhale so that someone else can breathe in.
This is how we keep our wars alive.
Too much happened.
Too many things fell to the ground.
Too many tripwires and too many mines
Too much fear and mournful losses, bleeding from the disdainful contempt and the tearful distractions that burst from an internal worry that something worse is about to happen.
Ah, the bratty child.
Afraid as ever.
The child is alive and well and living in fears of the dark or hiding in closets to keep from a beating that refuses to go away.
Too much anger. Too much pain.
Too many times when the shield went down, only to be fooled again.
And worse, too many times when the walls went down, and once again, the enemies of shame returned and found themselves exposed and so; there is was, we were burdened once more.
The first time, shame on you.
The second time, shame on me.
Right?
Too much worry that somehow, something bad is about to happen, —and so, in our best defense, we trip the wire on the traps that we laid for our own protection. And yes, they blow up, big and huge. And they blow like tiny landmines that detonate beneath our feet, one step at a time.
and do you know, it’s hard to gain ground after this.
It’s hard to find a foothold.
It is time to lay down the weapons of self-destruction and yet, not too many people know how to do this and nor can they endure or contemplate the silence.
At least the stir of arguments linger with a familiar tone.
At least the common grounds of battle make sense because chaos is predictable and the bullets make sense.
Chaos is chaos; therefore, it makes sense to expect the unexpected.
But wait, it is quiet now.
There is a dove perching on an olive branch.
This is a sign.
The scars run deep in these skins. However, the dove and the olive branch and the symbols of peace do not know about this.
They think they are saying hello.
They do not know or understand the assumption of an upcoming explosion or how the assumed detonation of this can trigger the fears of violent or terrible reactions.
And boom, just like that.
Everything blows itself to shit!
no side winds
We all die
No one wants to put their weapons down first.
No one wants to be exposed or infiltrated. No one wants that unexpected sneak attack.
You know the ones, right?
Like, say, when you offer your love to someone, only to find that they lied, just like the one before them, —and there you are again, humbled and heartbroken, wishing you never dared in the first place.
Mind well you silence.
I can still hear the shots fired, long after the last bullet left the barrel.
We can fight at dawn tomorrow
unless the time doesn’t work for you
I’ll await your reply
The Written Addiction 