The Contour of an Exposed Disaster.

I find myself sitting at your feet once again. It’s that place I find myself when I hang my pride-filled coat at the door. My eyes are wet with tears and my heart heavy with this craving that is never satisfied. My body is bruised, I hope you can recognize me because I surely don’t. How is it that I arrived in this desert? So dry and so in need of a cup of water. Bare-boned and exposed I feel ashamed sitting in front of you. My silhouette is dark and my limbs have been stripped of the clothes that covered up this broken soul. Sometimes it just feels like this disease running through my veins and pounding through my chest.
This is when you tell me that I am free from the ropes that bind me to this floor. This is when you tell me that I never had you fooled. This is when you place your loving hand upon my breaking back and support this twisted spine. Still I am not sure if I feel you there or if maybe I am still numb from the damage I have done. For someone like you to love a creature like me seems surreal. My mind just can’t comprehend your perfection. You desire to make me whole and I can’t get past the fact that I never feel good enough. Maybe I am scared of letting you down or maybe I am scared of not being in control. You know- so maybe you should tell me.
How is it that I can recite the proper words off by heart, like the songs I learned as a child, but I can’t fuse it to this heavy heart? All I know, and maybe all I need to be aware of right now is that you are still my beloved and I am still yours while I sit in this desert.

My New Garden

Sometimes it feels as if this life is one giant competition. Not one that any of us remember signing up for. Not one that we are sure how to be significant contenders in. We are born into it. Messy and naked. Taken from the warm world we once thought was home. We are then slapped on the butt with an unfamiliar hand and told that it’s already begun and we are to jump on in.
Excuse the exaggeration. There is a few years of innocence, a few years of education, a few years of, let’s say “training”. Then our blinders are removed and there it is. The race we all must inevitably join.
What is it that began while we felt warm and secure? Honestly, it started long before the day we were warm and secure. It started with a man and a women. (Doesn’t it always?) They lived in this garden, a perfect one. One that any of us would have been more than comfortable in. With only one rule to follow- “do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” With many other delicious fruits amongst them, this doesn’t seem too hard now does it? False, these two people, Adam and Eve, they were human too. Imperfect and broken, just as we are. Curious. Falling into temptation. Falling into the desire to gain more. And to go to any lengths to do so. Sadly, this rule was dismissed and ignored, and now here we are, ages down the road in a far more broken world than probably ever before. I can’t say that I blame the two of them. We were created with the ability to make choices. Good, bad. We choose. Unfortunately we don’t always make the right choice do we? I will be the first to admit that I would have failed too. Adam and Eve. Two names that will be spoken of for as long as the world survives. Pretty epic right?
Back to that whole idea of having a desire to attain something. Eve was tempted by a disgusting creature. She probably thought, “what’s the harm? I am about to gain complete knowledge of what is right and what is wrong.” If she was anything like me, she probably wrestled the thought out between her head and her heart. One saying ‘go’, the other saying ‘stop, please.’ Go is so much more fun than stop. One bite taken and then she shares this not-so-lucky fate with Adam. One decision changed a lifetime. Changed everything that was meant to be. This is our world.
Too often it feels like this life is a tournament. That we have to somehow gain more. That we have to climb higher and higher. All in the effort to become the best, the wisest, the prettiest, the most famous, whichever it may be. What do we do to get there though? Do we step on peoples toes? Do we lie, cheat, steal? We become fake, hardened, selfish. Consumed by our sick and monopolized world. This is such a sad and bitter way to look at all of this. But some day’s I just feel too tired to look at it any differently. My mind becomes blurred with resentment and there is a wish that burns deeper than ever. You know those two words, “If only...”
Why did that unfamiliar, cold hand have to slap my newly exposed butt. Why did I grow out of innocence and become exposed to this whole “competition.” Well, number one, it isn’t a competition. I think it is time that many of us accepted that reality. Number two, we all our equal competitors and we do not by any means have to be rotted with self-serving cravings. Take a step above your false impulses and next time you consider pushing someone off of the cliff, grab their hand instead. Next time you find your words oozing with false intentions, stop, restart and be incorruptible. I promise I will try these things as well. This race is not real. It was created by a world in which none of us win. Things will continue to be messy, but that’s alright, let’s just try extracting ourselves from the mess. I am tired. I am withdrawing myself from this fraudulent contest. Please join.