Freedom to Run

Sometimes it gets too much. Sometimes it's all too heavy. And when it is, I used to run. I used to go out to my favorite place and run as fast as my too slow legs would take me. I would feel the wind in my hair, the crisp air exploding into my lungs and the pounding of my heart in every inch of my body. The exhilaration of running with such freedom, with pain shooting up my twitching muscles and feeling breathless even though I'm so full of air -it filled me with energy and life. Enough of them that the weight would feel just a little less.

Those were good days. Now I have nowhere to run. It gets too much, and then it gets even more. It gets too heavy, and then it gets heavier and I suffocate and choke. The load never eases off. I can't run, I can't feel my precious wind piercing my lungs. I can't feel alive with my pulse exploding in every inch of me. I don't have that simplest of freedoms anymore.

I just want to run. 

Dancing

I'm dancing along the edge. My body pulses in time with a song about feelings. I can't control the movements of my limbs, nor can I control the music reverberating through my bones. I dance at the line separating sanity from mind loss, and in my dancing I hop between the two sides.

My mind is lost to the beat. I fall a victim to the edge and gain my footing all during the same song, and over and over again. I'm not in control of where my body goes. I'm not in control of how my particles choose to act. The music is. 

The Sound of an Email

The sound an email makes after it travels through the complicated web and as it lands into my phone. That specialized tone I've set for emails and nothing else. That sound that seems hardwired to those parts of my brain that issue the command for adrenaline to pour into my blood. The sound an email makes has the ability to send my heart racing and pounding in my chest. My body shakes in response and my heart does triple its usual work.

A slab of contradicting feelings slams into my chest and fills me to the brim. One side urges me to check it, check the email, we're dying to know. The other side cowers and begs that we're not ready. I ignore both voices and reach my hand out to my phone. I don't do it because I'm  brave, or because I've listened to the side that's dying to know. I do it on autopilot. Your phone makes a sound. You check it.

My shaky fingers click the tiny icon for emails, I click inbox with my heart in my throat. And it says iTunes, or Twitter, or Paypal. It doesn't really matter what it says, because my mind reads it as unimportant, doesn't matter -not it. It's not the email that decides the rest of my life. It's not the email my adrenaline was released for. It's still not the one. 

Chisel

You grabbed a chisel and took it to the rock of me. You hammered at my stone and filed at my edges. Hammer, hammer, hammer -trying to change the shape of me, trying to add new shadows and new highlights. You beat your instruments against who I am, and tried to mold me into a shape you would like better. You tore at my stone flesh and attacked it with no mercy.

I tried to hold my shape. I tried to keep my rock strong and unyielding. I tried to absorb the force with which you beat me. Hammer, hammer, hammer -trying to keep my rock from splitting, trying to fight your instruments of change. But you won't stop your attack. You won't stop filing at my skin. You drive your metal deep within the weak edges of my stone and try to pry the pieces apart. I hold on to myself with every ounce of strength I possess. I will not yield. I will not change. I will not be who I am not.

But hammer, hammer, hammer at my shape, my spirit and my soul. Hammer until I break. Hammer until I yield to your chisel. Hammer until you change me against my will. My stone crumbles to your will, and the shape of me becomes what you envisioned. I am not who I am anymore. I am who you wanted me to be.

I fell. You won.

But let me tell you this; if you love someone, you love them as you found them. If you don't, you walk away or you change them into something you can tolerate and love. They always say be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. And you just did. Beware. 

Waylay Station

The ride was bumpy. From the minute I stepped on the train it didn't stop rattling. The compartment floor shook so badly I could never maintain a balance. Right, left, fall, stand, sit, crash. I held on to impossible handholds that weren't made for holding, and tried my best to brace myself for the long ride.

There was an accident. The train crashed into a stop. I was knocked off my feet, and thrust into a wall. I woke up, dazed and bruised. The lights were flickering madly. I dragged myself ahead, trying to find a way out of the broken mess. The floor was covered with picture frames. I kept getting distracted. They were pictures of all the sights I'd been too busy to see. Everything was reduced to nothing, except those pictures. I stayed amidst the rubble and stared at what passed.

I hobbled out of the train. We'd crashed into a station. But it was empty. There wasn't a soul around. I found a phone, but the line was dead. I found a door, but the handle wouldn't turn. I found a train schedule, there were trains scheduled to stop by. I would wait and get on the next one. I would sit and lick my wounds until a train comes.

Time passes. The station is eerily empty. It's full of shadowy ghosts that lurk around. It's abandoned. It's condemned. It's haunted by its past. Time crawls by as I huddle in a corner. I hold my broken bones and sit and wait. The light is slowly dying out. Night is coming. The shadows are getting thicker. There's more of them. I'm filled with fear.

No trains stop by. I look for exits until my broken bones ache more than I can take but I keep looking. I find none. I am stuck. It's my waylay station. It's where I'm meant to sit and wait and think. It's where I realize that the train never shook. I was the one that could never stand still. I couldn't handle the ride. I wobbled and hobbled on steady floor. I crashed the train. And now, now I must suffer and wait. 

Book 2

I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry that I held on for so long. I see now that it was a mistake. I see now that I shouldn't have done so. But you must understand. I only held on because I hoped that if I kept the book alive, if I kept writing, I could turn the ending around. I didn't want to accept that my first book has a sad ending.

But now I see that it's ok if it ends badly. It's ok if the last pages are smudged. Because it's a good book. It was wonderful and terrible all at once, but it was never boring. I jumped so frequently between up and down that neither could ever claim me as their own.

I learned a lot. Living all those pages taught me more than I could have ever hoped to learn. I'm a better person today because of that bad ending. I lived. Those pages I've been clinging to are the proof that I lived, in all the deep meanings of the word. So what does it matter if it ended on a bad note? The beginning and middle were worth the read. Holding on and trying to scribble down nonsense just to keep a dead story alive won't change how it ended.

So here's my birthday present to myself. I will finally stop writing. I will stamp the words "The End" at the place where twenty-three years of life end, and I will add "Book 1" to the title page. I will close the book and set it aside. I will grant it freedom. I will let it be the way it was meant to be. Sad ending and all.

For my birthday, I give myself the truth and a beginning. I give myself a fresh start. A new book, with new dreams, new hopes and new aspirations. I give myself endless free space for change to find rest. I give myself empty pages and new pens. I give myself a Book 2.

Happy Birthday, even if it's two days late..

To Me

Hopeless Optimism

My eyes were closed. They've been so for quite some time now. Not closed by lids, nor by choice. My eyes were screwed shut by layer upon layer of scar tissue. My eyes were held in darkness, bound by fear and forces of pure negatives. My eyes haven't seen the light of day in ages. It has been so long I forgot that anything existed beyond the screen of pain filled shadowy webs covering my vision.

Today I will coax myself awake. I will search within my pulsing darkness until I find myself. I will call to that abused creature hiding in a corner of my mind. I will speak until my cords go numb, I will shout a cacophony of bright images into the lack. I will sing the melody of my very being until the air fills with a million parts of myself and the vibrating energy of my particles calls my soul back to life. I will merge with that shackled essence of who I am and I will embrace every part of myself.

I will rise once more. I will stand on my so called broken legs and I will smile through my scars. I will drag in a lungful of air and I will feel it fill my chest with electrical life. I will cleanse the inside of my flesh. I will scour every inch of bone, blood and soul until I find every last drop of that damn ocean of poisonous pessimism and I will cough it all back out. I will clean myself of those clingy pieces of darkness. I will banish them into oblivion with the force of the magical power that is my mind.

I will shed my skin. I will unzip that outer layer of ugly scars, burns, bruises and a million other signs of being trampled and I will let the overused skin fall to the ground. I will stand among my ashes and I will shine with a bright new suit of skin. My lessons are beautiful, my hurts, my downfalls, my scars are all too good to be painted in such gruesome names. My life is a story etched into my flesh, it is written in the DNA making up my cells. And it is beautiful. It is not a layer of slashed skin. It is a bright piece of human armor beaten to perfection. The coiled bits of skin I'm standing on are what the darkness made my life seem. But the tough, unique strength of my new outside is what my life looks like in the light of hope.

I will unclench my hands and I will let go of those shackles and chains that were holding me down. I will let the sound of them hitting the ground become the music of my victory. I will let the sudden lightness of my weight lift me against the pull of gravity. I will break free of even the basic laws of the universe. I will stand tall with my newly unveiled eyes shining with peace. I will stand among the pieces of illusion I clung to as the darkness engulfed me. And I will let the light of my hopeless optimism paint all of that pain into beautiful perfection.