In the dark, dust

Everything is pitch black, completely dark.
I am nothing but the dark.

I am scared that this is going to mean nothing more than laying here for endless years, no control over anything, lonely, and in the dark.


I suppose this situation would be suffocating, except I don't need to breathe. I would be cold, except the cold doesn't bother me.
I suppose there's really nothing to be afraid of; I'm completely isolated from the world in a box deep under ground.

No harm can befall me; I'm already dead.

***
Dark yellow afternoon light fell heavily through thick curtains, softly illuminating a square room filled with people. Some walked slowly past a casket while others stood around in small groups, speaking softly. Other people wept; a girl in her early teens sat in a straight backed chair, slumped over. Her mother's hand smoothed rhythmic circles on the back of her dress. Her mother looked like she too had been crying some time earlier, her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and sadness seemed to weigh on her like a lead cloak over her wide shoulders. The girl's own thin, bony shoulders shook as she sobbed into her hands.
The father, a burly and powerful looking man, stood by the entrance, shaking hands or hugging the people who entered. He stood straight and tall, but his face looked as though something in his chest was causing him great pain.

As the light softened and faded, the casket was solemnly carried outside to a waiting car. A procession of cars wound through narrow streets to a small cemetery presided over by great, lush trees in the full colors of Autumn. The cars began to line the narrow roads running like a grid across the lawn dotted with trees, headstones, and concrete benches. Next to a deep, long hole in the ground stood a temporary canvas gazebo shading a thicket of folding chairs. People got out of their cars and gathered together in clumps and pairs. Children raced across the thick grass, laughing and playing, enjoying themselves despite their surroundings and circumstances.
A few of the children plucked brightly colored plastic flowers and toys from the bases and sides of headstones, delighted with their findings until their parents ordered them to return their newfound treasures to where they belonged.
The family of three, heavy shouldered mother, straight backed father, and weeping daughter made their way to the chairs and sat down.

***

Everything is dark and I am bored.

The funeral service was nice, but my inability to respond to anything was stifling.
My heart ached for my mother and father. I heard my sister crying once, and then again all through my mother's talk at the service. There was nothing I could do to comfort any of them.



I was scared right after the casket had been buried. I haven't been able to see anything since my eyelids were closed, but all sound ceased when my casket was lowered into the vault. I almost felt like I was suffocating until I remembered that I don't breathe anymore.

Now it is dark and quiet and there isn't much to feel.
I can feel the velvet against my bare arms, and the clothing on the rest of my body, but the air in here is still and unmoving. I suppose it's cold down here, but I am not uncomfortable, thank god. Or not. As far as I know, there's no afterlife, so why would there be a god? I haven't met a god, and I don't expect to. I never really did. In life, I didn't believe in a god.

The moment of death meant nothing more than the cessation of pain, and control over my body and senses. I wish I had been cremated, instead of enduring this unending consciousness.



It's dark. I don't know why I keep repeating that.

It's dark.

It's still dark.

It's going to be dark forever. I'm going to be here forever.
I never really thought myself outgoing in life, but my current state of undeath and loneliness is making me reconsider.
I had friends. I had family. I wasn't isolated or shy, but I didn't particularly seek out company.
What I wouldn't do for a conversation with anyone but myself right now...

Dark.

...think I'm losing the use of my mind.... never thought of thinking as a sense, like seeing, smelling, and hearing... nothing to do down here... thought is the only interaction I have with the world. There's nothing to hear, smell, or taste... but there's a little of something to touch. Touch doesn't count when you can't move.

Time has no meaning, nothing to measure it by. No clock hands, no sunsets no sunrises, no light contrasted with dark. No change in my emotional state... Not scared, not bored, not happy or angry or depressed.


...getting used to the dark, different shades of black in black... Used to see patterns under my eyelids when I lived... These are nothing like those patterns... maybe light is required... There is no light here. No light. No light. No light. Only-
Dark

*

Body breaking apart, breaking down- my abdomen collapsing, my joints loosening, my muscles unwinding and pooling, my skin tearing. My body crawling and oozing, my bones exposed through my flesh like the stone skeletons of the mountains, -flash of memory and lucidity, -I used to drive by them every day, windows down, trees, green or orange or bare-branched and gray, whirling, streaking past my own fragile little car.

*

Thought is no longer my only sense of my small world. I can smell the effects of my body decomposing. This is the most unpleasant thing I've experienced since the actual moment of my death.

*

My consciousness fragmenting, spreading out and breaking up.

Breaking down and breaking up... like a tv screen full of black and white fuzz, a cell phone connection going into a tunnel, radio static. At least forever isn't anymore-

Anymore isn't forever.

The dark. The dark isn't forever.

The dark is just now... Now is forever.

The dark... only not dark, not dark, not dark. Static, fuzz; lighter dark and darker dark.

I am...
I, am.
I am... slipping. Sliding, thoughts like walking with a bowl of water, liquid sloshing and spilling over the edge, droplets. Droplets scattering. St-st-stuttering, bre ak ing u p.

I.
I,
I-I-I.
One...
One word, but not one mind. One letter. One me? Me, two letters, still one.


W....
e

We?

We.


We, no I anymore.
Many, so many.
We are many. Live in the dark, of the dark. Still, dark is not forever.

Someday, emerge into the light once again; New Life.
Thinking they can stop time, but they eat the bodies of their ancestors every day, and ancient stardust lives on in them as us, and as Them. We are what they say is primitive, but they are the ones who don't realize; Everything Lives Forever.

Part 2: Haiku

Boating together, 
But we want deeper water.
Watertight no more. 

Part 1: Poem "Deep Blue"

You start at the surface, 
Of course, 
Clear blue.

But you use it only to begin.
If you see pearls in the depths, 
You work your way deeper.
Boring holes in a water-tight boat,
Enough holes until it begins to sink.

Then, you're under water, 
Swimming in deep pools of thought and experience. 
Occasionally you surface for air, 
Depth is a choice, a struggle at first. 

You begin each time in the shallows, 
Pushing deeper, 
Enticed by the companionship
And intimacy you seek. 

I'm not angry anymore

I like to think I 

Was a bridge; so you could cross 

Over troubled water.

"The Perks Of Being A Wallflower"

Today I am Charlie.

A long time ago I read that people often absorb the personalities of main characters from books they're reading, and the effect can last for a while after they've finished the book.

I read the rest of The Perks of Being a Wallflower today. I've felt like the narrator and protagonist, Charlie, ever since I began reading this morning. He's a great character; really well-written. I identify with him a lot, I too am a wallflower and fairly observant.

I felt awkward much of the day, and rather depressed. It helped to go on a walk after I finished the book. I was getting pretty down when I read the first half of the book a couple weeks ago, so today I thought I'd try getting some exercise and a change of scenery after finishing.

I definitely take on the personalities and moods of characters I'm reading about, especially when written in the first person. Today I was Charlie. Everything worked out okay, though. I managed to converse with people my age and not totally freeze up or speak in gibberish. I felt like a part of a group for once, if only for a little while. That struck me as something rather alike to Charlie as well, and the group I was with vaguely reminded me of Charlie's friends Patrick and Sam.

Absorbing the personalities of books characters can be problematic occasionally, prompting moods that are less than ideal. Today I was acutely conscious of this phenomenon, so I got to observe it carefully and not get pulled too deeply into isolation, or the sadness permeating The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Today I was Amoniel being Charlie; the world was both poignantly fresh and nothing new to look at, just a little bit like walking in someone else's shoes, only they fit your feet perfectly and aren't altogether a style unsuitable to you.

Time Slipping By, But My Pen Is Dry

    I am in the weirdest writing slump lately and it's reminding me of how I write often of time slipping by, or not being able to write. There are about a million different ways to explore these subjects, and I suppose they are all unique and interesting, but I think I revisit the same subjects repeatedly. This is a redundant way to write, and therefore very boring.
    I'm working on a story, but I've run out of steam and inspiration, and I really don't know where to go with it next. I have sixteen drafts on blogger, but some are more than a year old, and I have no idea what to do with them either, or never intend to publish them anyway.
    I've hit a wall with my poetry, no inspiration there either, and it all seems unpoetic, or worse, sappy and whiny. There's no heart or soul in my poetry lately, no passion or beauty due to a lack of creative inspiration and new material. I swear all of the poetry I try to write is either preachy or it reads as sterile. This has happened before, and to write about it now is repetitive, just like I fear.
    Considering how well all my other writing is going, of course essays are going to be dry and difficult. But I'm pushing on through this creative desert.
    I suppose all of my writing is just repetitive, and I don't really know how to break through that, except to keep writing and therefore repeating until I unearth a gold nugget of new amidst all of the dull old subjects in my mind. 

Cut not thy limbs, dam(n) not thy own blood

My life, my soul mimics the waters I was born from,
Two rivers joined together,
Nine other streams branching from their union.

My pattern follows theirs,
Even as I choose my own path,
My own feet will carry me, their hands rest on my shoulders,
We have bound ourselves together.

In this world as it is, as we've found it to be,
Nothing much is permanent,
But we hope to create a permanence of bond
In this swirling, fluctuating society.

Hands

Suppose your hands are reborn, 

or die every time new work is accomplished? 

Or perhaps birth and death are as hard to distinguish 

From each other 

As the skin that peels and sheds, 

One thing emerges from the other 

Inseparable.

Tread Lightly, Enter At Your Own Discretion (This thing is a mess)

What of the world in my head right now?
What of the ability and struggle to arrange and rearrange words to imitate and represent things no word was ever born from? What of the tangled mess that is any one thought, tied up in everything else dwelling in mind, body and heart?

--However, A paragraph composed entirely of questions is not fun to read, no matter whether or not if I intend to answer them--

But the thought, the idea, floaty as it may be, --flighty as my writing is-- but the knotted thread and pathway of every concept, including god. The inability to vilify or angelicize anything altogether or entirely. This, in my mind, at least, makes it difficult to communicate effectively or confidently. Or even, I suppose, to make decisions.
Catching yourself in your ego-trapping, then writing that sentence and kind of mentally tripping. A shrug of shoulders and we move on, not to take anyone entirely at any one thing said.
What is life going to be like? Every year learning you knew nothing? Continually afraid, but watching for the day fear no longer comes knocking, but perhaps afraid even of that moment? (I'm really not as paralyzed by fear as I sound sometimes, I write more of my fear than of my courage.)

Look at us, finding ourselves every where. Resolving and falling and resolving again, self-conscious. Wondering if there is a place for our voice, flawed and inarticulate, though still beautiful, amongst all of those other voices, similar or not.


I sit here and pick myself apart, lay it all out in the air around me, suspended in reds and purples and whites. Constructing a world around myself, hopefully, but still not finding it altogether to my liking, and at the same time, feeling overwhelmed by what I perceive as the "outside world". Being terribly afraid of a god separate from me who would direct me where I don't want to go, though I say god is everywhere, in everyone, including at the heart of me.
I cannot see everything, but I would say that god sees everything. Even as this lends me trust and some form of faith, it opens all sorts of new intimidating doors, and trust ebbs away.
Not knowing the future, not knowing what will happen, but trying so hard to figure out how. Looking for when, straining to open my eyes, to see things clearly, and then blinding myself from (repetitious use of the word, but whatever) fear of what may be. Trying to know but not knowing and cringing at the prospect and offering of knowledge.
I once heard tell of a poem comparing communication, friendship, and love to two people flashing each other back and forth, lifting and peeling away clothing experimentally, weighing the other person's reactions. Rather ingenious, I'd say.
But that begs the question; why not just be soul and heart and personality-naked from the get go? Honestly though, even if we got past that particular affection, it still takes time to peel the skin away, for hearts to become familiar.

***

I've never attempted to articulate all of this before. None of it is concrete, all of it is a towering, flickering column or cylinder of fire. I have a thousand hands, and on each of them sits a small person, their own hands (more than just two) raised to eternity, mouths open and speaking in tongues on serene or animated faces. I don't know if anything will ever be black and white to me, even as I search so hard for the "right" path.

To break and comment for a moment: This page is not just white, it is flaming in so many colors, tangled with lush living leaves and bone and sinew. And back to the dance;

But bah, It is all in my own head, and who am I to influence the eyes and hearts of others? This is nothing but a page, with not even the barest trace of my fingerprints upon it.
What could it possibly retain of me? I suppose, however, that is the purpose of myth and story and metaphor; to put one's own personal stamp upon words strung together in infinite and impersonal combinations. What is the point of striving for that, though? Why should it matter?
I feel like I myself am fluid and blank, but I'm sure that too is untrue. Even as I so "modestly" back down from uniqueness, I am everywhere; I remember that in some way -on one of those hands- I am only here, therefore nowhere therefore both nothing and no less than everything. Monotone.
Have I lost you yet?
I am trying to leave a trail, but I don't know if it followable, for I created it and in creating it, I follow invisible trails of mind where I neglected to drop breadcrumb, ergo that does not mean it is in any way sensible to another person.

If I can be so many flavors, hypothetically so many people, does that mean I am nobody? Or a new kind of self? But that too is presumptuous. Guessing and theorizing and second-guessing and cross-referencing and doing it all far too shoddily in almost the only way I know how. But life is like cake, there is more than one way to bake cake, and more than one way to live life. There is an infinity of components and combinations to both. That, I suppose, is why I figure I can go about creating my life on my own, and it will, hopefully, be a better fit than the institutionalized, industrialized version of life. The one problem with this is I can see --if not all, a great many different possibilities, and it is difficult to drop my star-struck eyes back to the path ahead and choose, or just walk on.



Yes, this thing is a mess, but somehow I like it all the same.
What of the world in my head? What of it? This is the closest I've ever come (In one piece of writing, at one time of being) to mapping it all out.

All Things Wound Together

A question:
Am I the creator of the world around me?
Or is the world around me the creator of me?

-(It would seem that this sounds awkward and unmusical and a little bit muddy no matter how I write it.)-

A winding-gliding answer:
I think it goes both ways, I create and am created. The path I take is drawn, but also chosen.

I seem to be a woman of few words today...

This is something I did not choose *grins*


I was reading this blog on a college website the other day, and marveling to myself at the craftsmanship of the writing. It's a little bit intricate, but in a way that pretty well covers the entirety of the subject at hand, I think. It's fairly descriptive and it doesn't float off into the air like almost everything I write, it's solid and occupies its space.

So I am doing my best to pare myself down as a person and reach the very heart of me which I guess also translates to my writing, but it feels like a sort of simplicity and spareness of words that's boring rather than refreshing? *shrugs*
I have no idea, but I do think it links somehow.
I have to try, kinda really hard, to wax lengthy and delve deep into any matter. But I guess that's just how it is with such things, no matter who you are. It all takes focus and determination.
That's not something that seems to come easily to me most of the time, determination. I act like I'm good at it, but I'm not so sure anymore. What have I really seen through to the end?
Mostly I feel flighty and like a shallow dipper, hummingbird drinking from the surface of a small pool.

Musing, not intellectually plotting out and methodically sifting every rock from the sand from the dust. They're all full of universes anyhow...

Understanding all of this, though, allows me to consciously choose instead of merely following a path drawn or dug, I don't have to fall into the ruts of my own mind and experience, I can forge a new path for myself.
(For a minute it looked like that was going to draw itself to a close, but the thread of thought continued and I watched it split once again into ten different branches, all a different color and voice.)
I suppose I enjoy following every little path, either physically or metaphorically, and that is why I don't often like sifting the soil to fine treasures. It all looks like treasure, it's all breath-takingly beautiful and fascinating. So either I want to hold and see every treasure, or forget it all and continue on forward with blinders. A horse and carriage in London, don't you know... That's not fun for long though, so then, I suppose, I enter supernova.

You wouldn't believe how analytical I can be, but that's not all there is. That would be why I try to refrain from "I am" statements. It's all good, it's all me, and it changes so quickly. I've said I'm contradictory before, but it's funny how much more even that means now.
Creator and created, so it goes with god? Perhaps, perhaps.
After all, if we are god, if god is within, all around us, wouldn't god look so strangely opposite, though yin and yang are inseparable? God being inseparable from anything, everything, and Good/ Bad, separated by the human mind with the imposing forward slash, really being more gad, or bood than anything else. Black and white, spaced apart and brought together by the word "and", being more of a beautiful swirl and swoop or gray than the harsh straight line between them.

I'm not entirely sure any of this is following, or rather, leading whatever came before it, because the longer I sit here and type, the more my mind becomes a mess of color and static and my eyes light up with the glow from this strange tapestry that seems to be weaving itself from the movement of my fingers, the dance of my thoughts.
The longer I meditate, or think, for that matter, the more my language dissolves into something purely from that space in my heart that isn't entirely of me but is also the purest me there could possibly be. The more parallel universes and strange dimensions open up into milky galaxies and colors unknown by any psychedelic experience.
I can barely follow myself, so how should I expect another being to? I wouldn't personally know if this is a quandary experienced by all or none. I tend to relate my philosophies to all of the world and human race, and sometimes I don't seem far off, but at others I am quite sure I have missed the mark altogether.


To wrap this whole thing up finally:
As with many of the questions I ask, there are two answers, or an answer disguised as two, when really it is one thing of two colors wound together. Perhaps the question should not have been separated into two itself in the first place.
I would say that I am created by my world as I create the world around me; It is a dance, no one partner doing all of the leading or following.