stuck | of Petals & Thorns

I avoid the mirror, the bloodshot eyes stained from the tears brought by years of frustration,
I look instead inside, searching for an answer, a reason.
Some sort of justification. Anything.
The energy it took, the agonizing pain I forced myself to get past or swallow or get through, the stench of my own flesh decomposing, rotting away on my legs…
So many times I could have stopped fighting, so many times I wanted to.
It wouldn’t have taken more than a few weeks until I went away, and if the pain got too unbearable I had the pills stashed.
An hour at most, into one last dream –
and then nothing but a name
forgotten in time.

But I had hope. I believed that things could be better.
That they would be.

How wrong I was.

So now, I search inside
for the passion
the rage
the anger
that i have found
and hold so dear

I search for the love,
a reason,
a purpose…

but these past months
the deeper i go
the less i find and
the less i find a reason
to go on.

Seven years since I left the hospice, seven years fighting against the current, trying desperately to make it to calm water…
and for what? For THIS fucking life? This life, where loneliness eats away at my heart, where I seldom know where the next meal is coming from, where I can’t even pay my bills.
This is not what I fought for. Not what I lived for – and I can’t help but think, at times, that I made a mistake.

But here I am. If it was a mistake, it’s already been made, and it’s far too late to give up now.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll sell some jewelry, maybe I’ll soon finally be able to buy a car so I can not only do the things I need for my business to make it grow, but escape this city and just drive until I find a place – a beach or forest somewhere, alone, where I can find my heart again.

Maybe.

I read the me from a year ago & realize in dismay & frustration how little has changed.
Lately – for weeks, if not months, I’ve been feeling like all I do every day is pound my fists against this chrysalis I’m in, feeling as if I’ve been stuck in here far too long. I am formed & waiting to stretch my wings, but have somehow created walls in my mind that prevent me from breaking through the shell & feeling the air lift me again.

I begin to resent myself – partly for letting me become this way, partly for my inaction, & partly because even though I *know* how to break out of it I have myself become one one of the types of people I tend to scorn – those who talk and seldom, if ever, act.

That is unlike me, who has jumped into everything most of my life – from moving blindly to cities where I didn’t know where I would sleep & knew no one, to creating an online magazine, to driving across the country & changing the weak plans I had to live in a tent for four months, volunteering for Katrina refugees in Austin… and so much more.

So who is this person now? WHAT is stopping me from moving forward… except for simply moving forward?

I never have before, but now… I think I need someone. To help, to meet with & inspire me to get this book & bio & description done, to bounce words off of, cheer me on, and hold me accountable… but I can’t seem to find them. Everyone else seems too busy with their own things. Their own agendas. Their own lives… and while I can completely understand…

it sure does get lonely.

I simply used to jump off the cliff and wait for the wings to unfold. They always did.
These days however, I don’t seem to be able to find anywhere to jump from.
I just need help to get running, to start moving…

and to change this fear into excitement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
kSea Flux
December 4, 2014 ·

I look at old videos that I took while in Maitri. Things I haven’t seen since recording them, “footage” that no one else has seen, nor likely ever will unless you ask – and I don’t think you want to.
Better to hide behind the hint of truth that you already know.

These are the things I need to remember when I see other friends going through the hells that they do – so few of us tell the whole story. We’re afraid to.
We aren’t looking for sympathy, not looking for “oh, you poor thing…” We know. We know how you feel because we feel it more. We feel it more because we have that badge sewn into our flesh. Trust me, this is nothing against you… in fact, I hope you never do understand. I hope that you never have the capacity to empathize on that level. Your well wishes *are appreciated…

But what we truly seek is understanding. A person to cry *with* – not someone who cries for us. Only in those (thankfully) few people can we find some sort of twisted kinship.

Please don’t get me wrong – I love you. GODS, how I love you, for your caring, for your support, for the way that you *don’t* understand…

But I watch the videos, and even I, who have lived through that time, am disgusted at what I see… the decomposing flesh, the blood, the “fluid” that stained everything I slept in or wore, frequently soaking through the three layers of gauze & bandages to the pants Nd dripping on the floor of the cafe… And for the greater part of five years (the decomposition began *long* before I went into the hospice) – that was just another part of daily life. Brush my hair & remaining teeth, splash water on my face, peel the dressing and flesh from my legs try not to scratch because GODS they itched from the poison seeping out… and what do I need to do with CultureFlux that day?

THis seems like an entirely different life, the one I am living now… an entirely different person – finding my Birth Mother, being solid and “stable” enough to at least let a dog “think” that everything is wonderful… – even to the point of daring to offer my heart to another…

And remembering how wonderful that feels, even in the pain that it has brought.

Recently a friend said to let go of the past and focus on the future. I understood what was meant, and in many situations the person woulld be right – *IF* my past – this *particular* past were holding me back from myself and who I continue to become – but as I said to the person after a bit of thought – “In order to see where I am going, I cannot be blind to where I’ve been.”

We all go through what we need to, so we can give the lessons we have learned…

and I think I pretty much lost my train of thought… if there was one to begin with.

Perhaps the most important thing however – as grim as it may look to others, keep fucking smiling – and to everyone who *can’t* understand… please keep it that way.

You’ll find out enough about it in my book. That’s as close as I *EVER* want you to get…

I love you.