Comfortable Alone

In between the things we say,
just passed the stage faced speeches,
I am crushed by the meaningless...
empty dialogue.

Lost at sea, sea urchin of dying ideals,
I drift between white knightings,
and Epicurus' breaking, broken ship,
a hunger to hold on to something.

Isolated by damages picked up over time,
little picked poisons, survival addictions.
I know why you stand alone...
and why I do too.

Memory searches for nobler times,
so unashamedly good, so ready to trust,
and the distance between past and present...
sums up my fall.

Yet, the world is cold, machined, sterile,
economic systems built upon the premise
that selfishness might capitalize on human nature,
and trick us into helping each other.

Ive seen these dangers,
I can trace the scars they left,
the little ridges of skin outlining my fears...
and I think...what value remains?

With time I see the effect of the past,
with equal parts hope and desperation...the future,
till all that remains is the present...
ever slipping away.

And from my settled upon spot,
the one ive fought for so hard to "attain,"
I smile at the beauties of the world...
the little thrills.

Its not so much that I want to move,
more to know that I could if I wanted to...
my addiction to options made plain,
along with my fear to fail.

The longing and the struggle remains...
needing only the promise of possible attainment,
enough to linger on...hoping for far shores,
for some answer, for validation, for God.



~~~

As children we are so free of emotional baggage, of misconceptions and buttons. Damage done has raised so many walls, so many questions of whether the pain is worth the privilege. Intimacy comes with such risk and hurt. Yet I feel within myself that the openness, the haphazard nobility of my youth cannot be dismissed as naivete. There is some virtue in letting people hurt you. Of opening your heart to them and knowing it will end in blood. Perhaps the true skill is not in killing the desire for these attachments and more in killing the hurt.