Remembering Happiness

I have left my burdens and suffering behind, and stuffed the happiness that I have lived into a pack and walk with hopeful feet.  I never knew how big the bag could be, or how much empty space it could fill.  I forgot.

Sliding my feet on an icy street

The man who paints my portrait perfectly

The time between the jump and the water

Those are the moments. And when the suffering catches up to me, I will close my eyes and pull out a memory or two.  But I will remember them all in the end and the beginning.

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Denim

I grab your denim as you tread towards a brighter light.

Can’t you see that I was dark enough,

To see you when you were just a tiny bulb.

Those stitches burn into my hands,

A newer blue to blind the mended shades.

That’s ok, I left a couple tears there,

That darkened one millionth of your coat.

a tiny memory that light can’t hide,

 

because I hate you.

 

I wish you didn’t hate me too.

“The Pleasures …

“The Pleasures of Peace” Issue 43 by Frank Robinson

Good night, Frank Robinson

And Gypsy Rose Lee,

I am tired and I want to lie down.

All day I have walked along this deliberate coastline

Trying as hard as I could to write everything down—

And now you see what has come of it, I mean one star,

I mean one star and all that is left in the cupboard

Is one violet couplet of lights.

Perhaps if you could agree

To step out of that coat…

Personal Philosophies That Help Me Cope

-Live as if it is midnight in a perfect world.

-Just because you have a preference for something doesn’t make it better.

-When you are sad and lonely in the winter, drive around the neighborhood and find joy in the christmas lights around you.

-Conventional reality does not have to be your reality.

-It is freeing to know that most everything in this world comes down to opinions as opposed to facts.

-There is no ideal perfect.   There are many, and the best perfects are fraught with imperfections.

-It’s okay not to try your best 100% of the time.  You are human, breathe.

-Your experiences are not infinite in this lifetime.

-Create an experience and savor it.

-Try to let the good warm your heart more than the bad hurts it.

-Absorb the tiny positive details of the world around you, or invent them.

-When you are alone at night and afraid, imagine what your friends are doing at that hour.

-Repetitive motions are soothing.

-Safe, haven, release, hearth.

-You are every experience, even that of the pebble at the bottom of the ocean.

-Truth is constructed by the individual, it may vary.

-It’s ok not to be a fighter sometimes.

Pain(less) Gutting

Sadness will embed itself within you, in some intangible region deep within the soul. It injects poison into the nooks and crannies of your being, until one day you are nothing but sinews and veins and skin.  Sometimes, the sorrow consumes you so much that the faces in wood hate you and you die when you breathe in, and you are gutted. Sometimes, the gutting releases the poison, and you will be able to take off your coat and see the beauty in a smile and realize that even water tastes like something.

I am Sad.

I am lying in an invisible tent and the rain falls through, that’s reality. 

 

I am sad.

 

I can feel the sand crab burrow in the tiny crevice between my fingers, wiggling and tickling my skin.

 

I am uncomfortable and sad.

 

I can see the florescent sunset fade into total darkness. It is my time.

 

I am content and sad.

 

I am with my closest friends and we are painting each other’s nails.   We laugh so hard that the sound fills our soul instead of the air and the paintbrush strays onto skin.

 

I am happy and a tiny bit sad.

 

Someone leaves me because I was too sad.  They pushed on a transparent door and walked out, I could see and hear and smell them leaving.  I couldn’t open the door, it was not for me, but I wanted to run after them and leave myself as well.   So I waited by it, hoping that they would run back through it and ram the door into my waiting head and I would be happy.

 

I am sad. My body is heavy and my eyes are swollen, I can’t brush my teeth.  I feel that I am so alive that I might die. But I am going to do my best to make it.  And I will.”