Everything Fell Where They May

I have never been tough. Never
At least, not really.
Then again, I do not define toughness or being tough the same as I used to.
No, this word has taken on a new meaning for me.

I am not strong in comparison to true strength or even brute strength and yet, I have always wished I was tougher or stronger or twice as impenetrable as the shields that guard the heart.
I am weak. I know this.
I can endure pain, which I have proven and so, I am told that t be able to endure pain is a valuable commodity and like Nietzsche said in Twilight of The Idols, “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
However, I’d be fine to be less dead and less killed and weaker than to have the endurance of a man with a beaten past.

At the same time, I see something admirable in the open and vulnerable nature of being soft, or gentle.
There is something hard and strong about being loyal to your truths and in this regard, above all else; no emotion or feeling is harder or braver than the emotion of love.
I know it . . .

I would have never admitted to these things before. Never.
I would sooner admit to me evil or angry ways as a means of protection.
I’d rather be fake and safe than weak and susceptible to the damages that come from the pains of rejection.

I would have never allowed myself to be open to this kind of interpretation and nor was I ever brave enough to stand as I was or as I am, and nor was I ever brave enough to accept my truths and expose them like a man who exposes his chest against the threats of evil.

I was never true nor have I ever dared to be this truthful
I love what I love and in the case of love and bodies, I love the way a full body makes my blood push through my veins like a lunatic out of his cage.
I love it
I do!

Perhaps I read too much into the differences between the alpha and the beta or the dominant and the submissive. Or perhaps my younger associations with rejection and shame pulled me away from ever daring to be vulnerable and truthful again.
Maybe it was the youthful intrusions against me.
Maybe it was the traumas and the betrayals.
I was too much of a coward.

Perhaps I felt the sting of being played as a fool and more, perhaps the ideas of being so foolish or and gullible caused me to see a weaker reflection in the mirror. And, so, I swore, “This will NEVER be me again!”

More than anything else, I have always been afraid to be that kid or that guy or that person who appeared weak or frail. No one wants to be the ugly one or the one alone or the one who never marries or has a relationship.
I know what ugliness is.
I know ugly people, firsthand.

I remember sitting in a small cage after taking an involuntary car ride over to a stationhouse. I was sent to be booked and processed.
I was in a holding cell with others who were obviously bigger and far more dangerous. I was that little fish or better yet, I was like a guppy. I was helpless and sitting in a room full of predatory hunters, snakes, serpents, and sharks.

I remember being told that I was “too light to fight and too thin to win!”
I never wanted to feel that way again.
And here’s why –
I was the weak one or the lame one. I was the one who would have been devoured like a snack and I would have been forgotten right after because I was too small to be a meal.
There was a certain evil in the jail cell There was a special desperation too and yet, there were people in this room and at one point, all of them were somebody’s baby.

My fears of not being a real man turned me into the man I never wanted to be.
My fears had me contradict my truth and deny my rights to be happy or better, my faults and flaws held me back from the honest intention of being true and being in love.

And now?
Now what?
What about the saying about how you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
I am an old dog.
But I refuse to be unteachable.
I refuse to be cold and calculative and mean or evasive.
I refuse to be aggressive to save my own skin.
I need to learn new tricks.
Therefore, the only way to rid myself from the ugly past is to reveal it.

I want to find, touch, hold, and feel the meaning of beauty.
But first, I have to define this
I want to be gentle.
I want to be delicate and I want to allow myself the fortunate process of opening up to someone so perfect, and despite their flaws, in all of my years, I have never felt so strong, so connected or so at peace because of something or someone so beautiful.

I have news.
beauty has scars.
Beauty has perfect imperfections.
Or better . . .
my beauty is my beauty because my beauty is beautiful to me . . .

I do not think that I can define beauty for anyone else. I only know what beauty means to me.
I know what I see and I know what this looks like. Therefore, and at the same time, I cannot define beauty for anyone else.

No one can define beauty for me.
No ne!
However, mine is a simple definition. Or perhaps my definition is simple on a surface level.
My definition of beauty is something that triggers a feeling and an emotion or a change in my body.

I know what beauty is
I can feel it. I can hear it. I can smell it. And if I am lucky, I can touch it.
I admire beauty. I can feel a change come over me when I see something so beautiful because like most people, I often see the contrast of ugly things in my everyday life.
And so, as I see it . . .
Beauty stands out like a flower growing through the cracks of pavement on an otherwise city street in the Downtown scene.
Like say by Greenwich and Church, which is where I am now.
And when you see it, you know. 
Beauty –
You just do.
You feel the appeal for beautiful things and hence, your thoughts drift to a soft or sweeter place.
Music calms the savage beast, they say.
I say yes it does
And so does beauty.
I say beautiful things do beautiful things for the soul.
And perhaps no one else sees life this way. Or maybe no one notices or maybe no one else cares or perhaps no one expresses their thoughts or shares their appreciation.

But to me, there is nothing like this.
All beauty is unique.
Then again, there are all kinds of beautiful things with all kinds of similarities.
These are the things that trigger my receptors and allow for the flood of emotion. And some beauty is simple, like the adorable smile from a child that shares their innocence, untouched and unbroken,
Yes. Of course.
This is beautiful too.
Or like when you see the wagging tail of a dog and how their cheerfulness greets you.
This is beautiful.
Well, and since this is all subjective, I have to declare that this is beautiful to me.

I see beauty in different places, including the ugly spots or the underbelly places in the world.
I see ugly things all over the place and then I see things in the subways where the bums urinate in subway cars or their alcohol stench mixes with the smell of unwashed assholes and armpit stenches.
And still, there can be something beautiful seen or found or felt in places like this.

For example, I saw a junkie doing a familiar nod on the 1 train. And on the opposite end, I watched a young couple who were just two kids and I noticed how they sat together with a picnic basket.
They had a trip planned on the subway and they took the subway from one end to the next.
I appreciates this,
They people watched and they sat quietly and they held hands
This was beautiful to me.

Beauty . . .

You know when something is beautiful to you because there is a reaction within, like a daisy chain of blossoming ideas that softly explode and blow away the hardness of a cold soul.
Real beauty removes the guard and seeps through the shields that protect our boundaries.

I think that beauty to me is undeniable and to me, everyone has something beautiful about them.
Some people have more surface beauty which has worth and value. I agree. Beauty is beautiful.
But know this –
inner beauty is more of an intrinsic and valuable beauty that is unique and special.

Or like I used to tell an old friend who saw her teens as her ugly duckling phase.
I told her, “No matter how beautiful someone is on the outside, if they are ugly on the inside, then they can only be average at best.”
People like my young friend, r someone like you –
neither of you could ever be average.
Not even if you tried.

I know what beauty is.
I know that things like this can make me weak and grateful and frightened and excited.
I know there are simple things, like, say, the way a woman sits and looks off into the air while in thought. I love how she crosses her legs or sits up with a great posture.
Or the way a girl smiles or the way her voice seems to reach me and make the inside of my skin vibrate like mad; I swear this is beautiful.

My love has curves and swerves and marks on her skin that make her perfectly unique to me and otherwise, my love has the markings and the making of a queen.
Someone might have told her differently once.
And maybe someone might have told her that there was something wrong . . .
but I do not see her this way

I know that beauty has a way of traveling from her toes, which, of course, are painted and pedicured and soft.
And if I am being honest and humble and modest about my truths, I view the tops of her ankle like an apple, just waiting to be appreciated and bitten in the best way possible.
I am and will always be a man who appreciates a leg from the tips of her toes to the ankle, to her calves, and of course to her thighs and and her hips which I love more than my words explain.

Of course there are the special areas, like her most special spot, which rest between her legs and acts like the gates between her seas; and to me, this is the best kind of ocean, wet and beautiful and more heavenly than even Heaven itself.

Beauty to me makes me weak and happy.
Beauty to me is the way she looks when sitting by the ocean. I watch her as her eyes peer out towards the ocean and I appreciate her expression and the way her eyes tell stories of emotion.
I love this.
I love the way her hands grab something, like a drink for example.
I love how she brings a drink to her mouth and how her lips accept the glass or how her face changes when she quenches her thirst.
Or how she sips from a glass of wine, which is sexy and elegant and tempting all at the same time.

Her eyes .  . .
Her lips . . .
Her neck . . .
All beautiful.

I do not have a type, per se, and yet; I only have one type in this world. There is only one “love of my life,” and there is only one truth because anything otherwise is only a version; and versions are not truth, they are only portions of the truth and to me, there is only one.
To me, I admit I am weak.
I admit that I am soft and gentle and delicate and though I have been hard and in contempt and though I have been angry and resentful; when it comes to my love or my true love –
This is the only music that can soothe this savage beast.

I know what beauty is to me and now that I know, I can never unsee or not know what this is and, so, I wait and I hold on because there is no partial completion and there are no substitutes that will be acceptable to me.
Not anymore.

There comes a time when we wake up and realize that we have already lost enough to be so wasteful and lose more.
I have wasted decades.
I have lost opportunities
I have hurt good people. Or wait no.
I hurt the best people, which I claim and regret and I will pay for this at the hour my death (amen) and therefore, on the day when I meet my creator, I will have to answer why i let go of his most beautiful things.
I can answer that my illness caused me to lose my vision and my blindness taught me what it means to see.
And now that I see; I swear that I will never go blind again

Beauty is what makes the world go around. . .