Looking back at myself
I was overrun with awareness
I left a dent in the mirror
Where my eyes introduced me to my soul
An indelible impression on my memory
That's haunted me for three decades
A lonely space I stay floating in...
Surrounded by the walking dead
Asleep and oblivious to the apparition attached to every part of my existence...
My face disfigured over the years
Crows feet splashing in the puddles of my tears.
The boy that stared back at me
Died when I was 15.
I keep trying to resurrect that dead child...
Meanwhile...
I've been trying to stand erect while building character on shaky ground...
I promised so many
That they could trust me
And that same me
Destroyed me....
Put my future in shackles
And threw away the keys
To my dreams...
And that little boy just keeps haunting me.
Rushing me through all the places and spaces where angels fear to tread....
Ignorance tried to gouge out my eye of awareness.
But I still could see
That I am me
And I am real.
I am really here.
Breathing.
Thinking.
Feeling.
Resisting.
At the same moment I'm dying...
Did awareness give me life or did I give life to awareness?
Without purpose
They are both so meaningless...
Their connection is beyond symbiotic
It is polyamorous
Life...
Awareness...
Purpose...
The only Trinity
On which I know to focus
Not that I dont need
Jehovah, His Spirit, and Jesus...
I just haven't found the perfect form of authentic expression to precisely convey the way I feel about the epidemic of blissful ignorance I'm inundated with every single day...
I just wanna grab the world by its mountainous shoulders and shake it...
Hey...YOU....there's gotta be a better way...
Religious ideology
Molested my childhood fantasies...
Lies created
The printed lies
We call money...
Instead of surrounding fires
Trading stories and philosophy
We're crammed up
On hamster wheels
Powering light polluting cities
So we can pay for rent
And what's actually Mother Nature's utilities...
But nobody listens to me...
I cant tell who's crying harder-
The man I am
Or the boy beaten
By my father...
Nobody listened then either
And every time he killed my spirit
I'd come back the next day
Just like Easter...
So thirsty for validation
I'd sacrifice my own keister.
No birthday
But each day birthed
Its own disaster
Because I was never
A true believer.
Just a childhood heathen
Of the highest order
A pain to my father
An embarrassment
To my mother...
Of their kids I'm the oldest
And perhaps my heart
Is also the coldest...
Like seeds falling off the wagon
Every child I had
I abandoned...
The sun didn't rise on their nightmares
Of Daddy walking around in his own darkness
Constantly falling down life's stairs.
So when my unanswered texts say read
My cold heart is all too acquainted with their disappointed stares....
My imagination
Is in dire need
Of resuscitation...
None of us will live forever
But until we get to the hereafter
All dreams matter.....
Even mine
Fermenting like wine
In the back of my mind...
Picking up the shards
Of my masculinity
Like grapes that fell from the vine...
These pieces of my being
Lead a trail of tears
From Arkansas
Through Michigan, Texas, Tennessee, Florida, California
And all the way back to Arkansas...
My pseudo formative years
That ripped me apart
And exposed me
Before I was meant
To be exposed...
Like a busted water hose...
The heat of being his son
Refined my will
To rebel
And since I didnt fear hell
If it would get me into any kind of trouble
It was definitely
On the table...
I only exist
Because he loved
Their green Bible...
Or was it the maroon version
That fueled his passion?
Same words...
Different hue...
Some bruises matched it perfectly
But others were Cowboy blue...
Blue as your name
I wear as a tattoo
To remind me that I survived you...
He wrote scriptures of anger
All over my body.
Was he more angry with me
Or God
For not having yet destroyed everybody?
He hated the world so much
He beat the memory of my ancestors
Right out of my DNA
Killed my joy
Dropping switches
Like Ice Cube cruising L.A.
Choked my third eye
With a blindfold
He wore around his waist
Just so that dead cow's
Hide didnt go to waste
But never mind mine...
Im still a fan of performing
Though im totally against conforming...
Ive stood and delivered my own word
As much as I had God's now.
In that free space
Ive been shown mercy and grace
That I didn't deserve
Yet nothing feels more natural to me
Than the taste of limelight
On my face...
One of most people's
Most feared places
But I am not most people.
These are the things
I HAVE to say.
Not only the tip
But my whole tongue
Thinks this way.
The way
I say
What I say
How I say
Came from decades
And park benches
Dark corners
And well lit court rooms
Beaches and broken beds
Hills and valleys
Cold skies and warm toy filled closets
Fenced in yards and imaginary galaxies
Far far away
Yet they are still
The words I must say.
No one else will say
That we are fools
For living out our lives
Like slaves
To hell's Academy Award winning screenplays.
Frustrations and confusions
Are the dilution
To everything I say
As I deep dive
Into my archive
To discover the words
That only I
Was meant to say.
The way I say.
To whom I say.
Why I say.
What I say.
I say like a Christian prays.
From the depths of my soul
I'm saying what the atheist is praying.
The chorus in my heart
Has been our song
Since Creation's start.
We say
What we say
How we say
Because we say
What our lives mean
By the way
We live each day.
What does my routine say?
What do my habits say?
What do my emotions say?
What do my connections say?
How does my body interpret
The food I eat each day?
What story is still written on my face
After washing it
As I walk out into the world each day?
Can you see the words that are coming
Out of my mouth
By the warmth
Of my spark?
Highlighted echoes of insecurity
Raised walls that obscure
My destiny.
Walls that define
My truth-
My Word creates My Reality.
©️ 2022 PROPERTY OF QUORIZMA
