I Wish

I wish for clarity. Not the clarity of sight, but clarity of the mind. The kind of clarity that comes with a sharp focus, and allows you to see things for what they truly are. I wish I had clarity that can battle the thickest clouds of feelings, fears and bias, and allows me to see the true shape of the world. Not the pictures and images, but the tiny little dots that make the lines that make the colors that paint those images. I wish for clarity in all things, clarity to chase away all the haziness.

I wish for strength of will. Not the will that takes control and strength to stay intact, but the kind of will that is inherently strong and keeps you controlled and intact. The kind of will that makes no obstacle ever seem too big to climb. I wish I had a will that can take hard choices and impossible decisions and carry them through. The kind of will that allows me to change myself and the world with nothing but the power it gives me to keep going. I wish for strength of will in all things, strength of will to put all my words into actions.

I wish for patience. Not the short term patience that doesn't stand the test of time, but that inanimate patience that spreads over years and through pure desperation. I wish I had patience that can hold me at peace when life rises in absolute chaos around me. The kind of patience that lends the soul stillness and content, and a deep rooted knowledge that waiting is the key. The kind of patience that is never ending, inconsumable, and limitless. I wish for patience in all things, patience to fight away the restlessness.

I wish. 

Thoughtless

Sometimes we find ourselves coasting along with life's currents, letting them pull and push us any way they want. It's so easy to just surrender to those forces, to be on autopilot and let the wind and water guide you where they may. It isn't surrender or even trust, it's more being thoughtless and forgetting that if we aren't conscious of where life takes us, we might end up in the wrong place, or worse yet, we might end up being the wrong kind of person.

I've been so thoughtless. I chose the settings I am comfortable with and switched off my mind, allowing my body to go where it may. But even if you set a boat on a certain course, unless you monitor it, its path can change. My path changed when I wasn't looking. A couple of storms, a few innocent gusts of wind, waves in a certain direction and suddenly I've woken to find myself away from everything I wanted myself to be.

I feel so sad. I know that I can get myself back on the right path, that I can ride the currents and not let them master me anymore. But I am still sad. I mourn all that wasted time. I mourn all those thoughtless twists and turns. I mourn all those wasted opportunities. But alas, nothing can be done to fix the past, and so I must accept it and move on.

I want to be a good person. I want to make a conscious choice every single day to better myself. I want to look back on the person I was yesterday and be able to say today I'm a better person. I want to be able to do that every single day of my life, and I want the person that one day goes under the sand to be a million times better than the person I am today. I want to collect good deeds, and I want to look at myself and think that I am a good person, and I want God to think that too.

It isn't easy to wake up and realize that you don't think you're a good person. It doesn't mean you're bad, it just means you aren't actively trying to be good. It means you aren't making an effort. It means you've  been thoughtless. I wish I hadn't been thoughtless for this long. I wish I'd woken up sooner. I wish I was a better person today, but the truth is, I was a better person yesterday. 

You Can't Beat Me

Are you trying to scare me by flexing your muscles? You want to show me that you're stronger? That you can take me? Go ahead. Be my guest. Take your best shot. But I promise you, no, I swear to you, I swear on everything that has ever been holy and precious, I will make you work for it.

It doesn't matter that you are stronger, it doesn't matter how big and scary you are. I have endurance, more of it than you'll ever see coming. You will hit me, you will punch me, you will bruise and break me but I swear to you that I will just keep getting up.

My strongest attempt to fight back might be painless and pathetic to you, but it doesn't even matter. You know why? Because you can beat me to a pulp but you will never win. You can't beat a person that always gets back up. You can't beat a person that never gives up. You can't beat a person that has more will and tolerance than you can even begin to understand.

You have physical strength, you have the ability to break me and tear me limb from limb, but one thing you don't have is the ability to break my spirit. I have spirit. I have will. I have tolerance. I have anger. I have hunger. I will not go down. I will never go down. The more you hit me the stronger I become. The worse you break me the faster I will rise.

Your own aggression, your own strength will work against you and you will grow slow and tired from hurting me. I will let you waste all your impressive strength and I will take everything you have to offer in stride and I will fight it all with patience. And when you've drained yourself proving you're stronger, and your body has lost all its precious strength, then, then I will beat you.

I will let out all my anger, all my frustration, all my hurt and all my pent up energy and I will take you down. And unlike me you don't have the spirit to take it. You don't have the will. You don't have my kind of strength; the strength of mind and character. And you will fall. And I will win. I swear to you I will win. I swear it. 

Contradictions

The pieces I write are always dark and twisted. There's always some form of misery, sadness, despair, weakness and fear. It's strange. It's the best I know how to write. And yet in real life I'm the complete opposite. I don't know how to wallow in the negative, I live and breathe positives and I'm generally a genuinely happy and hopeful person.

The contradiction is intriguing. I wish I had the wit to understand it for all it means. As much as I can understand people, I can't understand myself. I'm a walking bundle of contradictions that confuses even me sometimes. I have rules that make no sense that I can put into easy words, and yet I am convinced of their rightness.

I guess the reason I don't understand a lot of things about myself is that I don't bother to question them too much. Some things I just accept, embrace and welcome. I mean, I trust my brain. It might not always share its reasoning with me, but the times it does it makes sense, and so I trust that it has reasons and they're good.

If I don't feel comfortable around a certain person specifically then I accept that some part of my brain picked something up that made it uncomfortable. If I don't trust someone even after they've proven themselves to me, I trust that my brain has a damn good reason.

I trust my mind, and I trust that there are some deep rooted reasons for all my contradictions. I don't questions my quirks, I don't question my oddities, I don't question the convoluted way my rules work, I don't question those weird feelings and instincts that make no sense. Because they are a part of me and I love them, and when you love something you accept it, and you work with it, and you trust it.

I love that silent part of me that controls more of my life than the conscious part of me does, I love it with all I've got. And so I'll accept the contradictions it rears up. I'll keep writing my sad, dark pieces and I'll keep living my happy, sunny life. Maybe the reason I'm happy is that my writings aren't. Maybe the reason I'm positive is that my writings are negative. I don't know. But it is what it is. And I love it. 

I Guess I'll Never Learn

I stood on the edge of the world, that point where earth ended and nothing began. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my lungs were desperately trying to keep up with its harsh pace. My eyes were closed, I'd chosen blissful ignorance while I could. But ignorance can only last so long. I knew that eventually I would have to open my eyes and face reality, and I dreaded it with a soul clinching despair.

I take as deep a breath as my lungs allow me, and I slowly peel my lids back. What I see makes my heart pound even faster, something I hadn't thought was possible. A thick blanket of fear covers me from head to toe, and my limbs start shaking uncontrollably. I keep staring at the bottomless pit and it feels as though it is staring back. It's shrouded in darkness and mystery, not the peaceful darkness that promises hope of the unseen, but a darkness that's alive with shadows and creatures that no man dare ever speak of.

I wanted this, I wanted to do this, I wanted to be here, I wanted to jump. I keep repeating that to myself, a mantra to drive away the mind numbing fear that threatens to overwhelm me. But the words are like a soft breeze caught in the middle of a storm, they brush my mind and escape without leaving a trace or causing any change.

I hear sounds behind me and I know that my audience is approaching, they are coming to witness my jump into frightening unknowns. I can feel their excited energy bubbling behind me, I can almost see the cloud of eagerness surrounding them. And just like that my fear shrinks back. It doesn't disappear, it merely recedes from my outsides and leaves me looking calm and eager while it storms around inside of me wreaking havoc.

They stand beside me and they look into the darkness. Whatever they see it isn't what I see because they smile and their excitement rises. They clap me on the back and urge me to jump. I am afraid beyond words, so afraid I fear that I might die from sheer fright, but I smile because that is what I do best. I smile to cover up the storms in my eyes, I smile to keep their insides safe from my insides.

I jump. I jump and my heart jumps to my throat and I hope to god that the fall doesn't break me, that it doesn't tear me limb from limb. I watch them as I fall, waving and smiling at me and I smile back around my fear for as long as they can see me. Once the darkness swallows me, I let my fear out to paint my face in terror. When I've fallen long enough to be sure they can't hear me, I unlock my lips and let my fear out in ragged screams and endless tears.

My hopes crash around me like a tower of glass, and I end up broken. The fall breaks me, breaks me a million times over and over again, and in the end it just keeps breaking me. Sometimes fear is justified, sometimes the shadows are monsters, and sometimes a bottomless pit doesn't mean you get to soar, it means you never stop falling and hurting. But even knowing that I don't wish I hadn't jumped. I guess I am foolish, I guess I'll never learn to listen. 

I Lost Again

I lie in bed surrounded by peaceful darkness, but the inside of my mind is anything but peaceful. Time passes by, painfully slow, and I watch as the world slowly winds down, all those awake voices slowly dying out until the silence is alive with whispers of deep breaths. Everything and everyone around me falls into an effortless sleep, and I stay awake, watching and listening. As always, that first brush of slumber manages to elude me, not caring that I was the first to invite it in.

The very Earth begins to snore, a new instrument joining the symphony of deep breathing and dreams, and that is my cue, my signal to let out a labored, pained sigh. I rise from my bed and begin my preparations, sliding my armors in place and holding my choice of weapons. I stand there dressed for my eternal battle, awaiting my opponent, my own personal monster to appear.

"Where are you?" I yell impatiently, "Are you afraid tonight might be the night I beat you?"

I fall silent, waiting for a response that comes in the form of a dark, chilling chuckle that raises the hair on the back of my neck, and covers my flesh in tiny little bumps. I tighten my hold on my weapons as Insomnia appears, and I am once again face to face with a malicious grin plastered on a face too bright to be seen, ready to keep me from the shore of Sleep.

He gives another evil laugh, and then he strikes and the battle begins. My skill level is no longer up to par with his. My mind was once canny and sharp, but the endless fighting has taken its toll and now my reflexes are sluggish and slow. My limbs are loose and frail, my eyes itch and burn, my head is heavy and pained -my entire body is weak and falling apart. But I am cursed, and curses don't lift because you are tired, and so I must fight through the dwindling of my flame and hope against despair that I find victory.

More and more time passes, and I am left with nothing but strength of will and soul to spur me on. My mind gives up and begins its favorite chant of despair; it urges me to give in and stop this torturous battle. I suddenly find myself fighting two foes, one from without and one from within. I desperately cling to my will, I try to clear the mist and fog my mind has wrought up and blow it all away with sheer resolve but it is unyielding.

I am lost in a storm of hazy emotions, my mind and body fight against me, my will slowly loses its spark and time aligns itself with the rest of the army trying to knock me off my feet. I fight a battle I am doomed to lose even though by all rights I have already lost, but I fight nonetheless and I keep fighting and I will keep fighting until I can't fight anymore.

The first rays of the sun appear, my heart sinks and Insomnia laughs victoriously. The sun lends him strength, and he pushes me farther and farther away from Sleep. With one last strike I fall to my knees, and I am defeated once more. I stare at the treacherous sun with dry eyes, too used to losing to shed any tears. Insomnia retreats to his hide out, the sun burns me with its heat and I fall to the ground, sinking into a restless fake sleep. Tonight, I lost again.