I’ve sat on this for a long time, the lost days, the moments of wanting what I had and no longer being able to feel the entering place. It really is like wandering dark hallways. All memory is lost because it cannot be seen. It can only be felt. There is nothing not askew. If color could be placed upon my mind, enough to outline those forms still brewing in my soul I would be a happy man, but it is only the acts of others that seem to be able to place me there. Those acts seem to be unimportant anymore. I could trace anything in my day. I don’t mean draw, but trace the outlines of feelings enough to be able to look back at it and proclaim its verity.
And I was proud. That was a good feeling. Although when you are at any particular place in your life you doubt that it is real and verifiable there was a time when final results occurred, final notions, things that made you breathe out and walk on sturdy in your step like a man who knows where he is going and determined to get there. Too many people have placed me aside or, to be more truthful, I have set myself aside for other people to shine. I have always been one who steps aside for the new and whole in others. I surround myself with those who do not consider these questions, those with minds that put forth what they know as if it were true and all that there is to know. This has caused me some despair over the years because my altruism overrides my selfishness and it is only in selfishness that you can assert yourself as those who are also asserting themselves mindlessly do.
I am working on this. It is my weakness, this capitulation to all who appear and assert themselves. If you listen enough to others you will forget that your truth must be gathered for yourself. What is this truth? It is a million footed thing. A monster or a saint that asks for less discussion, asks for an end to discussion so that it may be felt deeply. Study, something formerly sought after in my youth, in its disappearance leaves me hollow for then there is no more pondering. There is only scattershot thought, winged solutions, uncolored wandering darkened rooms. At least I lost my ego. But that was not what I truly wanted. There is the selfishness. This selfishness, this healthy selfishness, asks for more color, more light, assertion and proclamation all the while knowing that it may be shot down by another’s proclamation and yet, if so, this should be considered a good thing for the lion, at least, has been let out of its cage. No place for a lion to be.
I believe that the mind, in forsaking knowing, retracts, becomes emaciated and if left too long in an unattended state, dies. I have attempted this soulical suicide. It has been what I have wanted, to find truth in an unadorned state. But truth unadorned is not truth for it cannot be seen. Vision is desired because it streaks across the mind in a flash, with flash, and does so because life is proud and viable and seeks beauty in every step of it’s formation. We cannot be a dunce, asking for nothing for hatred of human pride which we may believe lurks around the next corner ready to devour us. We are meant to shine. Our proclamations are meant to be daring and our lives so fulfilled proclaim back to ourselves our goodness. We become beacons of light that move us forward because it has taken away our choice. When you see an open path you must take it. When you do you bump once again against darkness, but beside you are visions of truth that edify. It is this picking of the fruit right where we are that allows us to grow. Growth is our ability to feel secure in our knowledge. Knowledge allows us to feel secure in our steps. Darkness is only darkness and can be penetrated by simple light until we finally reach the reality that we seek be it what we expected or not. We seek knowledge of ourselves. If we become too wrapped up in mind games of others concerning us we will become stilted, but once we awaken again we are more than able to continue the fight, to pick up the sword and cut once again at those black chimera’s just ahead. We kill fear.
To have true victory over fear we must have true acceptance of love. Love is the result of our having tried. Our having tried reminds us that we are worthy. Success is that which allows us room to stand back and smell the flower, to love the flower and all those around us. It is and is not the opposite of hate. Hate makes us want to hurt. Love, it’s opposite, makes us want to continue the path in which we are on. It is our payment for we do nothing for free. We all must be paid and when we play in the garden of such thought it is nothing but this love that reminds us that we are good and right and worthy. Love goes hand in hand also with change. If we are to love we must embrace the entry into the realm of love. Without this entering into the darkness with bright flame we are nothing. Fear, the first thing we encounter on our journey, is only fear. We must not back from it. We must edify ourselves with that which will remind us of this. Some would call this positive thinking, but I hate such terms. It is more poetic than that. This beauty, this senseful beauty which occurs when we dare to love, is all and all ultimately, for if we are to give our lives over to the process, a process which may at times decapacitate us, we must reach for the lifeline and love is the lifeline. In it is beauty and joy and delicate artistry. This goes for thought and spreads into things that thought produces: art, literature and such. We are meant to explore the good and great things in our lives and in other people’s lives. It is not our responsibility to hold it down as the greatest of thoughts, for all things die as well as the opportune moment for the release of a beautiful thought, but while we are with it we should be with it completely. In this way the love spreads through you and you are able to share the thought poetically, shiningly, daringly and lovingly and the end result is that whatever kernel of existence was hiding inside of you is now released into the wider world, injected into other souls who can use it for their own sustenance. If it falls flat then we must remember that the process is true, but not always true for others. Opportunity knocks to those who can hear it. For those who can’t it doesn’t mean it won’t. It may just mean that it is not time.
I have gathered a hatred of poetry over the last few years because of hatred for myself. This must change or else I will die. Literally die. The body cannot live in a world where love is kept out voluntarily because you feel unworthy. I am worthy.
The Fargo Kantrowitz'z Literary Campsite 