It’s a Saturday night and I am completely alone. I sit watching a movie in the vestibule of my existence, not quite wanting to enter the main room where I store my deepest thoughts and wildest imaginations. Yet the voice, that wild creator of mayhem and precious chaos, beckons me forward.
I’m fine here. I see the freedoms bestowed on me through time. Gone are the tired rants of misaligned ideas, replaced by the sanity of wonderful aloneness. I need count on no one here, I can imagine what I wish and think thoughts of unlimited potential. I can sit in stillness and wander the caverns of my mind, never quite scaling the sheer cliffs of angst and never quite setting the table to certain despair.
Yet my heart and mind push beyond the boundaries I have set upon them. I can feel the taut power of my legs as they remain ready to leap forward, yet I can also feel familiar chains wrap around the same limbs, preventing my escape. Am I ready to make the leap, or am I simply meant to honor my space without even a dream of moving beyond it?
Time will tell, or so I’ve heard. I notice I am far from unique. We all struggle for importance in the hearts of others. We find those who we wish would offer us such peace, and we prompt them into some sort of action. We are drawn to certain others like moths to a flame and we seek a solace in them that affirms our beliefs – either this world is full of liars and cheats or we can find an anchor on which to moor our sanity.
Silly man, I think. Stand your ground and fight. Don’t bleed here, in front of these voices. Pick up your sword and slay them, and lay down the weapons you use upon yourself. Do not struggle with their lies, instead stand strong and resolve your love to the truth. Your truth. And nothing but your truth.
I remember the sacred oaths of yesterday. I hold firm to the power I’ve built within the very cells that cried with me so very long ago. I can’t deny the visions and voices, and I won’t belittle the cynicism that seems to carry this baggage of mine up the mountain trail. There’s a reason I’m a lone warrior with many loves who illuminate the darkest areas of my path. There’s cause to be firm in my understanding of who I am. When I bleed, I keep those I love clean. When I cry, I keep those I admire dry. When I fight, I keep those I adore so very, very safe.
Who am I to keep pushing you away? Who am I to not believe in you? Who am I to simply look the other way when I feel your eyes looking too deeply into my soul? It’s not your diving I take issue with, it’s your lack of looking that drives me away. It’s your fear the stirs my stable cauldron. It’s your resistance that is the stone the sharpens the knife I use to cut myself.
I realize the irony of the most difficult things being so alive in their naked simpleness. I feel your hand in mine but feel your heart out there somewhere. I see into your eyes but know your mind is walking in a different forest. I absorb your embrace but know your heart is so very far away.
The long and short of this is that I am fine with the apparition. I’ve made peace with the ghosts and the voices, having battled them to a draw in the final stages of this recovery. Once they won with ease, then I returned the favor. Now, I just embrace them as part of a process that began long before I can remember, back during a time when a boy thought he was helpless and a man thought he could find power in the rage of a liar’s mind. A warrior is he who has discovered that he could love without anger, be powerful in his surrender, and in the process battle his demons into angels, and transform his losses into wonderful victories.
Tomorrow I will awaken, and I will sit on my buckwheat throne and rule the only kingdom I will ever need. I will meet those voices there, and I will command them to speak. I will find my peace in the mischievous summer stream where I bathe, and see the footprints of those who walk with me not in some wild demand of weakness, but in the strength and power of a true love’s free will. Those footprints will be cast by those who wish to be there, and who wish to share the path with a lone soul carrying bags of gold for all to share.
I like that idea. The riches I carry have little value to most. To a certain few, however, they are priceless wonders of a warrior’s treasure acquired in the sweaty dance of battle and spent wisely on the souls who have decided to stand alongside him. There are no senseless games here, just kindred souls putting one foot in front of the other in total harmony.
Until then I will find my slumber, and dream my dreams, wishing you were there. I will awaken wishing you were next to me, knowing full well that you may never be ready for such a gamble. I will recognize the beauty in a security I may never find, in a space I may never see, and in a dream I may never fully realize. Yet I will smile in the recognition that I am were I need to be with whom I need to be there with. I laugh alone, and I bid a good night to the ally I fully trust in the blackness of this night.
I left her to go about her business, and I arrived alone in certain memories. I left a moment of knowing togetherness only to now lie among the stars, a man whose only lovers are thoughts created yesterday, who today bear gifts of a hopeful tomorrow. The space I now lie is my friend, the night air that surrounds me is my moment’s comforter, and the stars above my guide to a wonderful, loving destiny.
Find me there, if you wish, or simply go your way. In either case I love you, and in either way I know myself with nothing more to gain.
Peace.
I understand the meaning behind your words. Battleworn, I am left to wonder what is it that keeps my lover from walking through my door. Does the pain of my desire and longing for him to be at my side keep him away? Or is he too busy slaying his own demons? Does he feel me, in the ethers, the way I can feel him? It can be a challenge to keep the faith in our physical meeting. Yet, I so often open my eyes in the morning with the feeling of his breath on my shoulder. My Being yearns for more.
We’ll never know until we ask, or until we are told. Still, does it really matter? What matters is that moment when the travelers meet at an intersection somewhere, and what they do with their time together.