Alive

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The air is alive with a subtle humidity: a warm and vibrant mist permeates the atmosphere of the city I grew up in...

In the middle of the night, I awoke to the sound of rolling thunder, crashing violently overhead. Several times, it seemed as though the lightning struck the ground outside my window, as I figured from the intensely bright light and the loud sharp crack akin to gunfire. It sounded uncomfortable. It sounded angry, and even at times it sounded joyful. Though through it all, in all its mixed emotions, I couldn't fall back asleep for long; it almost seemed as though the world was trying to tell me something.

At work today I waited to go, and I stood just inside the doorway to the patio. The juniper tree across the parking lot shuddered with joy in the ambiguous breeze, it's dark earthly colours clashing strongly and even endearingly against the bright yellow and dull kaolin-clay gray of the building's exterior. It seemed to say "hello" to a world that it had long-since grown bored with, and who could blame it? This town has done a lot to me; as I'm sure to any other person. To see it in the weather we have today is almost like falling into a world and time completely different form our own land-locked landscape. I could even feel the direction of the earth's rotation changing, and then I faced the East, and the sun was on it's way to setting across the deep lagoon of a harbour less than 50 miles away. I felt I could stand out in the weather as the gentle precipitation which came and went periodically returned, and as it fell softly on my forehead and shoulders, I could be transformed into that child that loved this kind of weather more than anything, and laughter would all but overcome my riddled, aching heart and mind...

But perhaps that is wishing for too much?

Boku wa...

The Foremost raised his hand in preparation to speak, intending his every word to be heard and felt and obeyed without question. But then a strange thing happened:

“Why is this man here?”
-- excerpt, personal writings

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I don't think I am a good person.

I don't like who I am. I've stated that, before, and you've read it, before, as well.

I think...
I think I am not confident enough in who I am.
I don't much like others--can't seem to stand them long enough when I don't see something in them I really like.

Then again, there's those people I do "really like", but for some reason, I end up ignoring everything about them that could hurt me until it does so multiple times. And even though I've known this for a couple years, I've not been able to change that. Sure, I have been able to reduce the amount of time it takes for me to realize whether a person I see as "good" has a "bad" side or not... but it hasn't seemed to help much in the long run.

A thousand words rush to mind, an even to the heart of my tongue, when I think of all the things I want to say. I've not said much, lately, but what I have said, I wonder if perhaps they weren't the best words I could have used. And, then again, I never have been good at public speaking...

All I can think to say... I'm sorry, and I'm sorry for that.
I can try to be different the next time. I can. And I will. I want to wake up and be a different person. A better person; someone you or anyone likes to be around. Perhaps, I could see it this way, this new leaf could be a testament to who I am going to be? And, in so many words, that's that! That's it! That's what I want! I want to be different! I want to wake each day and know that what had happened in the past is not what has define me in any way but the way I want!

And so, I want to look at it and say, "I'm not going to do this, anymore" and "I've tried this, I've been through this--why do it again? Let's find a different route!"

On the Stand

“Silence.” At once the room fell still. “Are you so sure in your conviction of this man that he is a criminal without just cause? Do we not owe it to him to hear him out and grant him a fair and just trial, just as our Lord and Savior has done for us?”

More mutters grew from the crowd—-mutters of shame and piety as all but a few hands moved in the shape of the Cross. -- excerpt, personal writings

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Many times in the life of an individual are things done that he immediately regrets; yet nothing can be said for the past. It is what it is, and it defines who we are. What he can do, however, is take what he has left in his hand of that crumbling dream and piece it together into something more bearable.

I am quickly approaching that age where the person I have become will no longer be able to change. I've seen it already. I've experienced things that I would to God I had not, and I've said and done things which I've wished with all my being, some even while they were happening, that they had and were not. What a pitiful soul I've become! What a wretch of existence, I tell myself. And all the same, is it not a self-curse? Has it not been one broken dream after another that has lead me to such a poor existence? What can I say for myself, except that I hate it all. I hate me, and what I stand for, and what I don't stand for, even.

I hate the who I've become, and the who I've not ever had a chance to be. I hate the lies I've told, and the loves I've sold. I hate the people who've broken me, and the me who's broken people.

I detest to the core of me, and yet there is not one way into that shining city; there is not one small crack in its silver walls that will let that hatred consume me wholly. And I hate that even more.

I hate that I have to say I'm sorry, and I hate that I can't bring myself to it. I hate that anyone could forgive me so easily, and I hate more that I can't forgive myself.

I hate that I lost you, so long ago, that I didn't say anything, and that I don't know still if anything would have saved you. I hate that I never tried, in the least, and I hate that, even now, I'm still losing. I hate that: losing. I can't stand what it does to a person. I can't stand what it tears from the very soul, those shards of innocence that even my own self-hate can't glean victoriously.

So all in all, I hate myself for not being the person I could be, and also for failing to rise to the occasion.

Give me another chance, and forgive me my misgivings. I'll try again for the love that I lost so carelessly years before, and I'll try again to laugh. You whom I know now are a new caretaker. You are a new friend, a new chance, a new beginning; so water me with love and understanding, and I will grow to the tree that shades you, and others, in the desert sun.