Tulasi – Literary Arts Blogspace

civilized

All i am

Is a confining statement

Or is the confinement in my head

The concept of confinement

is in itself non-existent

until i give it my energy, my attention

My very being confines itself

To fit its

Mold

How ironic.

Every barrier i have ever known

Was first built from the inside

Freedom may not be an open field

But the moment

When no one tells you

Where to stand

You think you can fly

Dear

Uninformed

child

You may have mistaken familiarity

For safety so many times

Even an unlocked door

Feels like something

you should apologize for opening

It is your decision

always

Fly

when

you

wish

All i want

is to know

You run across the halls

Down and up stairs

Like i would remember your viridian calls

You expect so much

I wish i could satisfy

Your nightmares with every touch

But you say you want to cry

So i let them begin

As if they could ever end

Shed some light

please

You know

I collect its skin

Take me to the dirt

I wish to revel in its brindled finery

Can you believe that

Blue veins

creep along your green and dusty pink patches

You form your terracotta into shapes

The stars haven’t had the privilege of witnessing

before

I must cross them

If i am to make anything

Of myself

Snippets from everyone’s

collective thoughts

Decorate my mouth

I swallow them

I can only hope they assimilate

I stuff my ears with the rich rich soil

I think i am safe

Your song

Strings a necklace of peridot

I lost

When i was seven

and happy

alive

heedless

yet so conscious

I can have that back

So incredulous

And for what

It might just choke me

again

How could i explain to you

The pain of coming across as a fog

Specifically a fog between the trunks of a forest

In the early morning

Not the murky dismal kind

That would be easier

You would feel the weight when you saw it

This fog

Mingles with the dappled sunlight

Tricks you with its lambent beauty

Until you are in its mist

And you are consumed

Disoriented

So drowsy

So unsure of yourself

The fog is unsure too

You might as well

fall

into

slumber

Dream away

my novel radiance

my apologies

There is no pain

I inflicted it upon myself

I had to get it out

I had to coerce it

It has a hard time trusting me

And i am still scared

Of showing you

i must find contentment

within my fear

please help

Fillers

Just because yesterday is your tomorrow

Does not mean i need to keep you company

In the dismal illusion that is your reality

Can’t you understand?

I want out

Your greed is not my token

Your anger is but a spout

In my ocean

You scream, a shrill, ear-piercing screech

Telling me to leave

Then once i am out of reach

Out of your condescending, over-bearing grasp

You act as if you grieve

For what

I do not wish

To pretend

Your dissatisfied hiss

I comprehend

I want an earthquake

I call out

I want the sky to break

I want to rip myself out of the flesh suit

That is not my own

There is nothing

That is mine

In the universe

Because i am

The universe.

She gifts me

Such a beautiful bouquet

Of dying flowers

It almost changes

My mind.

My light

How can i explain

Your grating voice

Carding through my hair

Your cafuné

Almost puts me to sleep

again

But i know better now

I chew up your flowers

Spit them

Straight into the eyes of the sky

Twist your voice

Pressure it

Until it paints me in the vibrancy of the stars.

Let the blood cry

No one will console it

I find the vestige of water marks

In your red carpet

Evidence of your attempts

to submerge yourself

even deeper.

I walk for seconds and years

You have never once refused to sing

an aubade with me

I find you in the seventh cloud

I fly through.

It disperses rapidly

Not desiring to be the bearer of scarlet rain

There is no dawn anymore

There is no space

No vacancy

Perhaps this is what you wanted

For me to disappear

To become a whisper

A smudge

A forgotten name

On the tongue of someone

Who never learned how to listen

But i am still here.

I am the gap

Beneath the door

The trembling glass

The thing you so gravely desire

But cannot quite reach

You think it is destruction

I think it is becoming

I shed

Every borrowed skin

Every expectation

Every diminutive piece of myself

You tucked into my pockets

And called mine

I leave them

on the floor

like dead moths

I do not carry

your weather

anymore.

Let the ocean engulf it

Let the stars swallow it

Let the earth grind it

Into something

useful.

this is the place

where i end

and everything else begins.

Things I find when I get lost

Dream a dream within a dream, for smudges of uncertainty serve no purpose here.

The lines of the ceiling are etched into my eyes. I see the swallowtail caught in its grainy image, stuck forever or free to stay. I can’t decide which. Perhaps there is no difference.

Dust drips from my hands. It is purple.

A stain in my way. A splotch in theirs.

Maybe we should fly.

I delve into my thoughts so much sometimes that I get lost in them. I can take one small thought and turn it over and over until I don’t remember what it looked like when I first picked it up. I follow it down one worn path, then another, until I eventually end up in a new thought field (or cavern). Sometimes it is overwhelming. Sometimes it is peaceful. Sometimes exciting. Sometimes I don’t want to deal with any of it.

But occasionally, I find something worthwhile. There are no maps, but there are patterns. Things repeat. Old thoughts return wearing new clothes. Questions I thought I had outgrown wait patiently (or impatiently) in corners I haven’t looked at, or deliberately ignored, for years. I usually find a new way of understanding myself. I understand someone else a little better (or think I do). I stumble across ideas that change the ways I see some things I thought I already understood. I realize that a feeling I couldn’t explain has been muffled for a long time, trying to tell me something all along.

Sometimes I wonder if thinking this much is useful. It’s frustrating. There are thoughts that clarify and thoughts that only create more thoughts. There are questions that lead somewhere and questions that simply carve a crevice inside of me and make themselves comfortable.

I wander on. I don’t think getting lost is always a bad thing. We tend to think of being lost as something that needs to be fixed. You are supposed to know where you are going. You are supposed to have a destination, a plan, an answer. There is something almost embarrassing about saying, “I don’t know.”

I do think there is value in not knowing.

We are taught to treat uncertainty like an error. A filthy smudge that needs to be wiped away. A wrong answer. Something unfinished. But perhaps uncertainty is just another part of the landscape. Maybe the blurry edges are what allow us to keep moving, keep floating by, dreaming, running, achieving.

The swallowtail doesn’t need to know whether it is trapped in the wood or choosing to remain there. It is there, and I wish to do the same.

I can think. I can question. I can get lost. I can find something and carry it with me. I can leave other things behind. I can figure my way out.

The point isn’t to finally reach the end of my thoughts. Maybe the point is to see what I find along the way and make the most out of it.

On that note, I’m really attempting to come up with some interesting, concrete concepts instead of just writing vague stuff ninety percent of the time, but that’s yet another thing I’m trying to work out with my brain. Wish me luck and I hope you have a stupendous rest of your week!

Young dreams

What would you do if your child thought they were a monster? How do you explain emotions, feelings, things that are bound to happen: pain, love, loss, life, to one so young? You don’t. Or you do and hope they turn out alright. There is no proven way to grow up. Pain is necessary. Love is subjective. Children are incredibly programmable.

I think about the things I was taught when I was young and wonder how many of my beliefs were chosen by me, and how many were simply handed to me before I knew I could question them.

I believe I am responsible for everything in my life. That is a belief I have chosen in recent years (and am still working on). Not necessarily because I caused everything, but because if I take responsibility for what has happened for me, there is no one left to blame. I am not a victim of anything. It works for me.

Everything is as it should be. Even the things I don’t like. Even the things I disagree with. There doesn’t have to be a “should.” Everything is subject to change, and that’s okay. If I want to change anything at all, I have to change something within myself.

Maybe that is why I try to avoid spending too much of my energy obsessing over all the ‘wrong’ that can exist. I do not believe any good would come out of me dropping everything to hyper-fixate on problems I cannot immediately solve. I also want to reach a point where I can observe what I consider wrong in this world without feeling the need to fight against its existence. Just things to notice, accept if I can, and let go of.

I want everything to flow smoothly.

But do I?

Occasionally I imagine a life where nothing is ‘wrong’ and it sounds unbearably uneventful. Maybe that’s a limiting thought. Fun, dramatic, beautiful things can happen without disasters. A life can be eventful without being painful. But sometimes it sounds like a nice break.

Speaking of breaks, there is escapism.

I wish I could drown everything out. I don’t fully know why. Some part of me does, probably, but I don’t want to deal with that any time soon. Denial. I don’t know how long I’ve been doing this.

I have spent so much time trying to understand whether I want to be here, whether I want to stay happy, whether I want anything at all.

I want to be content. Whole. Alive. I sometimes mistake detachment for peace. And sometimes it is. But I think there is something in me that wants success, certainty, more life. I realize those are normal human desires. But at the same time there is a part of me that would just love to not feel anything. Not want anything. Not even numbness. Just free. But maybe that’s why I am here. To learn and accept.

I can’t make sense of a lot of my thoughts most of the time. Or I just don’t want to. I’m trying to improve that. Trying to grab them more often and solidify them in front of me so I can look at what’s actually going on inside of me and deal with it rather than keep pushing it around and away.

I’m just trying to figure myself out and not only have little glimpses of realization only to overthink it all and drift back to inceptions. I need to remind myself that it is okay to stay adrift for a while though, as long as I eventually find some grounding path.

I don’t have a coherent idea of what I’m doing with my life yet, but I’m still here, still questioning, still choosing to keep going, and even if I don’t figure it all out it will still be worth it. I choose to believe so.

I don’t know why this is what my thoughts spilled into but I’m glad I got this out of me. Thank you.