flower--bud

I am enough as I am.

I am accepted and loved as I am.

No need to figure it all out. No need to have more. No need to make love. No need to eat. No need to drink. No need to be skinny or walk or run or contemplate more. No need to speak more or think more or write more.

          I can breathe.              And that is so good, Sam.

I have wondered since 15 if I actually love dogs      Or if I am just around them most of the time.

There is a difference .

I found that out 5 months into dating my ex-wife. There is a difference.

I learned this growing up in the same house as my parents and their 6 kids      Anytime I had a fight with my brother or sister      And tried to distance myself as much as possible      By running into the backyard      Or jumping into my closet and furiously swinging the door behind me. There is a difference.

I know this because I am now 26      And so I have spent 26 years (completely inseparable from)           in this body                with this hair           and this nose                those thighs           that ass                the arm fat                     the love handles           the ears , the freckles      the brain , the mouth           my fingers , my eyes.

I almost lost myself

In that I almost forgot

How to control all the different parts

Of my own self.

Like an instrument with strings

I was snapped, cut, broken, and in the middle of  it all.

So I moved.

New strings.

But still so out of tune.

Still an instrument but without chords to play

Or songs to resonate within the long, hollow body of my now open and waiting soul.

So,  about love and self control and peace...

The based-on-the-amazing-true story Of every journey Of everything Is not about where you end up But where you Begin Again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again And again

When I do not rejoice      in thanks-giving I find myself Turning to a sort of

Autopilot

Snickering Cynically Steering towards sad At every turn

Allow Yourself 

To believe the Truth

That your Body

Was Worth 

Existing

I ache I break I bleed I beat

But if you stay, I am loved And if you leave, I am free I will not stop pumping blood Though the love I originally

made

for you

is left

here

with me

I carry on,   imperfectly, But I carry on The rhythm

You’re not the answer.

You never were.

I started asking the question when I was young and I felt alone at the lunch table. I asked the question when I looked in the mirror and felt fat. I asked the question when I cried when I was being punished by my parents. I asked the question when I felt like my brothers and sisters were friends with each other without me. I ask the question when the sun goes down every night. ... when I sit by myself in a group of friends. ... when I talk.

And I dig for the answer I crawl and hold on and sweat and bleed and push and force and squeeze and kick and yell and cry and pray and curse and slam and slap and fall back, having no more answers than I did before.

I was born once, why should I have to be born again?

Progess is 

“what am I going to do today?”

THE NEXT BIG THING is just the next thing.

There it was.