Pablo Neruda's Sonnet XVII (English Translation)

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.       

Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;	5
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,	10
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.	15
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.	20

Evening the Odds (equal equations)

I may not be religious but there is one Bible verse that I’ve always kind of enjoyed… Most of us are taught one form or another of it as a child.  Luke 6:31, which reads something like: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  This extends into many areas of my life… and I take it seriously at every turn…

I am honest, occasionally to a fault, because I expect honesty of other people… and how am I to expect something of other’s that I am not willing to give myself?  At the same time, I am not totally naïve… I realize that not many people actually share my belief and will lie to me even if I am honest with them… Does this mean that I should forsake my own “vow of honesty” simply because others choose not to be honest?  I feel not.

I don’t consider myself to be better than anyone… I try really hard to make sure no one feels inferior when around me (because of me)… and, generally, feel really terrible if I find out that I accidentally made them feel that way… I prefer to think of myself as having more of an equal footing with those around me… I am no better.  I am no worse.  Again, I am not naïve… I realize that not everyone else shares this view… but I don’t speak up if I feel someone is tearing someone else down… Why?  Partly because I rationalize that it is not my place to do so… partly because I often worry that I am being over sensitive…

Some other things… I try to avoid throwing punches… causing physical altercations… fisticuffs, if you will… because I do not think violence is actually the answer to anything.  I also avoid screaming at people… even when I am extremely angry… first, because I do not like the way that I feel when I scream… and second, because I do not like scaring other people… or making them cry… and these are both things that happen when I scream at people.

I feel that all of these things are reasonable and are part of what makes me a decent human being… they are my “good” that outweighs the “bad,” in a sense…

In Theory this is Easy...

I’ve been to about a dozen therapists since I was little… it was the same process every time: come in, sit down, be asked some questions, be told it’s not that bad, be told what to do… repeat as necessary.  They all made it seem like life is so easy and I was just getting it wrong… If I’d only do what they were telling me to do it would all be alright…

But that’s not how this works… Life is hard… I’m twenty-six years old and I’m trying to unpack/analyze/dissect my problems… consider where I went wrong… consider why these things have happened to me… consider why I have these issues… come to some sort of conclusion… fix something.  But it’s not actually as easy as they always told me it was… I can’t just list out all of my problems and solve them one by one… Believe me… I’ve tried.

So let’s start with a basic one… something that in “theory” will be easier: I have a food-based germ phobia.  Under most circumstances I cannot eat or drink something after someone else has consumed from it… the thought of it freaks me out.  I don’t know why this is or when it started.  I’ve tried to pinpoint an exact moment but I can’t… It was just there one day.  And it is only food based… everything else… I’m fine.

If I’m totally comfortable with a person I can sometimes eat from the same plate or drink from the same glass as them.  I guess this ties to my trust issues somehow… I “trust” that they don’t have germs?  That can’t be it… it makes no sense… I want to say I don’t think about it but I’ve forced myself on occasion to just do it… take that bite, take that sip… and that involves conscious thought on my end.  Sometimes though… yeah… I guess I don’t think about it.  I’m so comfortable… my mind relaxes… I let it go…

Those times that I force myself though… Am I trying to force myself to be “normal”?  Is that right?  Is that even okay?  And why is it that I don’t freak out after?  But other times I totally will…

Could this just be a compulsive behavior?  Something I do as a subconscious reaction to something… Shit.  Yeah, I think this makes sense… I become nervous… but I don’t say anything… I feel as if I can’t… I am usually around people that I don’t feel 100% comfortable talking around… so the nervousness builds… my mind translates that onto something else: germs.

So this is… This is a behavior?

These Walls Can Build a Castle

This kingdom has a moat… with many crocodiles revolving through its waters… predators lying in wait for their prey.  There is a way across… a draw bridge… hardly lowered.  This stone fortress holds secrets that must be protected… Its towers contain well trained archers… its gateway is prepared to crush the most unsuspecting of men.  This is a place that most dare not try to enter… the risk (seemingly) outweighs the reward… you do not get gold at the end of this journey… you just get… me.

I’m not perfect, by any means.  In fact, I consider myself to be a greatly flawed individual.  That’s part of what makes me human, though… having flaws.  And admitting to them is what makes me decent.

I don’t find trusting people to be easy.  In fact, I try to avoid it… this is a behavior that I have learned after years of being lied to… years of being let down… disappointed…  This is a pattern that repeats itself… it is rarely broken because most people are the same… Most people are sheep.  My saying this might seem unfair… I do not know everyone… but this isn’t something that I have no evidence for… this is twenty-six years of the same record playing… the same songs being sung… the same tracks skipping…

At the same time there are certain people that I am immediately and strongly drawn to… it’s something that I don’t understand… it’s something that confuses me and scares me because I am so open with these people… and that is so very contrary to who I usually am.  This is not a symphony that everyone is meant to hear… but these people that I find myself strongly drawn to not only hear the music… they listen to every detail… every part… and I let them.

I’m afraid of ending out heartbroken from letting the wrong person in… coming to rely on someone and then finding that they are no longer there… and then I’m wrecked… and all alone.  I don’t know how to deal with that.  How do I make myself vulnerable but still protect myself?  Is that even possible?  I’m afraid it’s not… but, at the same time, I’m afraid I have no choice but to make myself vulnerable and then be wrecked… become a shattered record.  Perhaps it is time that I learn to pick up the pieces…

Follow This Map: Some Fragments of History

At this point in time a certain percentage of my body is covered in ink… but you wouldn’t know that from looking straight at me… not unless I told you… not unless I’ve shared myself with you…

I hide my ink the same way I hide most everything else about me… It’s covered from plain sight… from the rest of the population… from common knowledge… It’s a personal part of me that only a privileged few get to see… And though that number has increased over time it is still controlled… because even once you gain the knowledge that I have tattoos… you may not get to see them all… and most will never hear the story that goes along with them…

My tattoos are a map of the life that I have lead… they are “scars” and they tell stories.  This is a map that you cannot read without a key… with pathways that trail off and head in opposite directions… detours where you wouldn’t expect them to be… There is no seeable end and no seeable beginning.  It is all one.  And while I could highlight the road ahead for you… and tell you how to survive the twists, turns, and drop offs… this is a course that most don’t stick with… they deem it not worth their time… they give up… they walk away… And I don’t want to waste my time.

This collection of ink that I started years ago has grown steadily as I have grown as a person… It is both chromatic and colored… large and small… done by others… done by me… done on me… It’s a collection of stories etched on pale skin that I felt needed to be told… an incomplete narration… It’s a map.  It’s a puzzle.  It’s a beautiful tragedy.  It’s all mine.  It’s my life.  It’s my story.

On a Certain Day in February (02/25/09)

I’ve written this at least a dozen times already and I don’t feel like I’m doing it justice… The details to this picture are lost at sea and I’m unable to pull them back in and put them on this canvas… For some reason the blues and the greens don’t seem nearly as pretty as they are in my mind.  I know the portrait that I want to paint… it’s almost 5 years old and has been sitting in storage in the back of my mind since its occurrence… but this archive is a maze of twists and turns that my brain refuses to let me navigate… it’s trying to stop me from placing this photograph on the wall for all to see.

There are few things in my life that I can pinpoint the exact moment or event that caused them to happen… That thing that caused the change to occur… That thing that made me fall in love… or fall out of love.  This is one of those things though… when I know the exact moment… the very thing that is responsible… the lead in to this very moment… and I want to tell it right because it is that very important but I don’t know if I can… I stop myself every time I start to tell it… I’ll trail off… I’ll leave the important details out… Change the subject… Ignore the question.  But I can’t do that anymore.  This archeologist needs to start digging through the mess of memories she’s trapped inside.  I need to figure out just who I am… without all the complications… or in spite of…

There’ve been several people that have had a profound effect on my life… people that have had a hand in making me who I am… some of them are my best friends… some of them are no more than casual acquaintances.  Nicole was somewhere in between that.  She was the arrow that pointed me down the path that I am on… instead of letting me continue on the path I had intended to follow.  This wasn’t her intention though… I’m sure of that… because none of this really happened until after she died.

This is something that I don’t normally talk about… It’s hard and it’s painful and I just want it to stop hurting so goddamned much and let me go on with my life.  Just let me be.  I don’t remember the exact day it happened… I don’t really remember anything except that I wanted to die… I wanted to die so badly that I got a whole bunch of sleeping pills… and stared at them for hours.  I’m not sure what it is that stopped me from doing it exactly… I don’t even fully remember having got them but I know that I did… I was that done.

There are 63 episodes of Six Feet Under and I watched them all in two months.  I often attribute the show with saving my life… at least in my mind I do.  It was at the end of those two months that I felt better… almost as if by magic… It felt like… for the first time in a long time I could breathe again… I felt relief… and I didn’t want to die anymore.  This was the thing that got me into television.  I knew… somehow… that I wanted to do this for someone else… save them in their moment of need by writing something so powerful that it just… erases the pain from their life… and all it took for me to get here was a loss so great it still haunts my soul.

The Dialogue of my Anxiety

I feel like a paper doll… I keep waiting for a strong wind to just come along and… blow me away.  Free me from this world… this life.

You don’t get it.  You’re freaking out once a month because you can’t control your life and it isn’t the same as… what I go through every day…

I constantly have this feeling of drowning in quicksand.  I’m totally helpless.  Surrounded.  Being pulled down below the surface.  I try to claw my way to the top… but the more I try… the further I seem to sink.

It’s a terrifying and completely hopeless feeling that you just can’t understand unless you’ve been there… Unless you’ve had this feeling of free falling without a parachute… hurtling towards that inevitable moment of impact…

I worry about things that haven’t even happened yet.  And I worry so much that my basic ability to function is compromised.  There are times when I can’t… be around people.  I can’t think.  Sleep.  Eat.  It’s such an overwhelming feeling… like I can’t escape.

And these things that I worry about… Maybe they’ll never happen.  But I worry about them still.  They root themselves in my brain and just… they take over.

I hate the looks I get from people.  The judgment in their eyes.  And don’t tell me they don’t… stare.  I know what staring looks like.  What it feels like… I’ve been stared at all my life…

People look right through you and right at you at the same time… and they stare… and they judge.  As if they know me.  As if they have a clue.

And then there’s this physical pain… like someone has stacked a dozen cinder blocks onto my chest.  And every time I try to breathe my lungs just won’t expand… Every attempt for air feels like glass shards are tearing through my system… splitting my insides apart… refusing to let me go…

That’s what it’s like… every day for me… from the time I wake up until I fall back asleep…

And no, I can’t just stop having anxiety.  So, please, stop asking me to… Because, believe me, I would if I could… I’d just flick a magic switch and turn everything off… Go back to normal… Whatever that is.

Rudyard Kipling's "If--"

If you can keep your head when all about you

  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

  But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

  And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

  And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

  To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

  Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

  If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

  With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!