Teach me.

Everyone is telling me that I’m not trying hard Enough, that I’m not doing Enough

Everyone is saying that there’s so much More

More to Life,

More to Experience,

More to Me.

That I’m missing out-

always missing out-

always something else I could be doing,

something Better with my Time

With my Energy.

My money.

Something Better.

I could be doing something Better.

So teach me.

teach me.

Show me, then

Show me how.

Because without the extra help, I most honestly do not believe that I will be able to do this on my own.

So,

tell me that I could be doing More,

Sure.

Prove to me that _you_ are capable

And so

Through correspondence

So should I be,

And prove to me

That all of it’s my fault.

Fine.

I already know.

I know.

So it’s my fault.

Okay.

But if it’s really just as easy as you say,

Would you show me?

You’re a skilled climber

Please just show me? Just teach me how to climb, please, if you will

Teach me to Endure and

Teach me Strength.

Perseverance.

Because just watching you from afar,

Blinking against the glare of the sun into the distance,

Squinting at what is now your tiny figure,

waving at me from above,

as you stand atop the mountain from the sky….

Knowing you are strong and

Seeing you’ve endured.

Persevered.

And hearing you call to me from the distance:

“This *could* be you, my friend!”

Well-

Fair or not.

It isn’t nearly enough.

In the beginning,

I didn’t think to look to the end.

And so

Ultimately

It was just that-

Our beginning-

That ended me.

You’re right.

I’m doing it wrong.

I should fix it

I have always done it wrong, and

I should fix it, but

I will never stop doing it wrong.

I just want to give up,

Give in,

And stop trying to fix it and

let myself keep being wrong.

Because

fixing it is an endless task.

An insurmountable task.

And for that

I am sorry.

But

I didn’t ask

To be here.

I didn’t ask

To take up this space.

Your space.

And all I can think-

What I can’t help but know-

Is that

I wouldn’t be able to do it wrong

If

I wasn’t Here in the first place.

The Electricity is gone.

The Lights are gone.

First there is Screaming-

So much Screaming.

And then

there is Chaos.

Starvation

Theft

Murder

Death.

Torment.

Who’s gonna feed you if there’s no system to do it? No driving force?

Who’s gonna catch you if they can’t hunt you down?

Can’t see you?

We are but left with the daytime sun,

and at night only remain the moonlight and the stars.

Oh,

The sun.

The moon.

The stars.

When the screaming eventually stops,

And the Death is finally gone,

All the small People can seem to do

Is stare at the breathtaking Perfection of it all. Mouths agape at the vastness of the Universe,

Of the constellations,

And admit in both shock and shame:

“We buried this Beauty

with an embarrassing Replacement”

And pray the Lights stay off.

In the glimmering reflection

of the Moon

across the Water, and

scattered Starlight

dancing across our skin,

The Glow of sun beams

through the Window, and

The Twinkle in our eyes

We found

Pixie Dust.

The one place I’d explore?

My Mind.

I’d dig all the way down

Down…

To the bottom

I’d Stop running

As I always have…

To understand

Me.

Explore the inside of my Mind,

To Learn

To untangle the Knots,

chase down loose ends.

Memorize each road,

Each pothole,

Each tunnel.

Master how to track,

To hunt the Evil living and lurking inside

And

Destroy It.

Or,

call a Truce

Either way,

It falls silent,

And I’d never need

To run again.

Instead,

I could finally

At long last

Live There.

My Mind.

I’m at a loss

For Words,

For Thoughts,

Emotions..

A loss for

All of the above.

I don’t know why it is this way

I don’t know why it gets so hard

So difficult

Just to put Thoughts to Words

Words to Pen

Pen to Paper

I scavenge my mind for anything to grab onto

To pick

From a field of millions and millions of flowers

All poisonous, but few

And to carry on?

I just snatch

And Pray.

Beginning from the very day we're born we are consistently thrown two powerful, imperative messages.

Messages.

Lessons we are meant to keep.

Keep in the forefront of our minds for every day as we live

For as long as we live.

1) Think of others. Put others before yourself. Give everything you can. You are the least important person in this room.

2) Think of yourself. Put yourself before others. Keep everything you can. You are the most important person in this room.

Putting yourself before others is selfish, until it isn't anymore.

Putting others before yourself is kind, until it isn't anymore.

And then it's unhealthy. Problematic. Toxic.

True selflessness?

It doesn't exist.

True selfishness?

It doesn't exist.

It doesn't exist.

They don't exist.

So what does?

What exists?

We are told all our lives to fend for ourselves, or we gather it on our own, as we watch the world around us fend for themselves and learn that we must do the same to survive.

We are also told all our lives to fend for others at our own expense, or we learn it on our own, and we never know when to do which.

No one truly knows.

I suppose

All we have are educated guesses.

Hypotheses.

Theories.

Are we selfish for choosing ourselves?

Or are we selfless for choosing others?

I suppose...

Yes. No. Both. Neither.

Wanting different things than those around us makes us selfish, but their want for similarity will always makes them selfish as well.

Are we selfless to forfeit freedom to make them happy? Are they? Or do we just avoid conflict... selfishly?

Everything we do is self-driven.

Self-urged.

Self-motivated.

We're born this way.

We're all born this way and

We spend our entire lives either fighting it or giving into it, and we battle between the two endlessly.

Fighting the voices in our heads that tell us to either do everything for others and care less about ourselves or do less for others and choose everything for ourselves.

'Selflessness' means winning a fight you're not even sure you're meant to win.

'Selfishness' means the very same.

We'll never know what's right or wrong, so it's the best we can do

To guess.

To guess with every choice we make.

To pray we don't make a mistake.

I suppose

It's all we can do

To strive for Balance.

Strive for Balance til' the day we die

There’s no sworn happy ever after,

No promised silence filled with laughter

No guarantee of paradise

Of snake eyes when you roll the dice...

It sucks.

It’s sad

It’s scary, too

But you can’t ruin Now.

You can’t ruin You.

See-

There IS a happy here, right Now

whatever moments’ love allows

Forget next century, decade, year

Remember feelings, Now, right here

Those anxious “if”s? They just don’t matter

You’re happy Now

and Maybe After.

I want to tell you that it tasted disgusting

That it tasted Vile

Like Pain,

Like Loss

Like Torment.

I want to say that I gagged on its burn

Choked on its smell

Broke in half from the painful electricity of it all.

But it didn’t taste like anything.

It didn’t smell like anything.

It didn’t feel like anything.

When she died,

I felt one thing

and I felt it as strong as I’ve ever felt anything.

Maybe even stronger.

I felt

Nothing.

The Nothing I felt was a Smog,

thick

grey

-suffocating.

I’d never felt Nothing before.

It felt empty.

And hollow.

And grey.

All the taste,

the smell

the color

was sucked from the air around me

and I couldn’t get it back.

I couldn’t feel, taste, or smell even the worst of colors.

All I felt was Nothing. Only the grey- only the absence of color in my mind, in my world, in my eyes,

I felt Nothing.

It didn’t even hurt

And that hurt most of all.