this is why i need conversation

8/6/07

because when words go firing through my delicate mind, they are looking for a proper outlet. sometimes it's satisfying enough to flood the page, or the screen. but those vehicles have no response. no critique. no opposing or parallel idea.

until then it's mental masturbation.

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coconut skin sprawled across a bed that makes my body feel small

arms outstretched appear weak against the size of the room

the carpet is far away

and suddenly i am insignificant despite the comfort of this flesh.

no goosebumps or sunburn or orgasm

could make this body more real,

and yet it is easy to slip out of the moment

to lose concentration

to falter among thoughts prone to thorns.

i've been fighting my way back

to greener pastures in the landscape of my identity,

it is a common effort--to return to myself--

one so often necessary because i am so often

thrown.

shoved to the terrain just beyond my control;

forced to create paths that lead into myself

without using the shortcuts of denial, distraction or deceipt.

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i've been thinking about people needing other people. regardless of how alone each of us feels during certain parts of our life (and in certain moments of intense emotion), i do not believe that we are ever alone. okay, maybe there are people out there with no one to talk to. but more than likely, there are people out there who lack the motivation to reach out to someone; there can't be that many hermits in the age of hotlines and the internet.

i've needed people for a whole list of reasons. and when i say need, i really mean that without these people, i doubt i would have made it thus far into my life. it hasn't been easy. it hasn't been ten shades of hell, but it hasn't been a breeze. and i, like so many others, find myself questioning the scope of it all from time to time. so the reason i need people, is generally to maintain my sanity. writing helps, but through writing i am only trying to connect--to link some part of my experience to the world. and, as i began talking about earlier, this is why conversation is so satisfying.

now. i cannot bring myself to believe that i need someone for a more specific reason than this. a more specific, personal, romantic reason than this. and at this point in my life, i can't think of why anyone would want to put up with me. someone asked me the other day, if i did not believe in marriage, what did i want out of life? did he think that marriage was all life really had to offer? this kid was young(er than me), and i assumed he still had plenty of faith in the whole "there's someone out there just for me" ideal. it's funny that i've lost that idealism, but managed to maintain so much else. i'm not a total cynic. but i'm not as optimistic as i was ten years ago.

i would like to say that i am a nonconformist. but to be a total nonconformist i would have to rebel against more than i do. and there are certain social practices i participate in with as much enthusiasm and curiosity as the rest of the herd.

i would like to say that i'm a unorthodox. but again, i'm presuming to know what is normal. and nowadays, i hope, the term "normal" is just about useless.

i know who i am not, what i am not. i may still be working on who and what i am--which is fine. if i had already explored every aspect of myself, i'd be a fairly shallow person. and i don't know how much time i have left. but that shouldn't matter anyway.

i used to always say that if i can go to bed feeling full, feeling content. if i can die before i wake without having a sense of regret or want, then i've lived that day well. this forces me to live in the moment. but i'm realizing, the older i get, that it isn't even about finding what's special about the moment. it's grasping that the moment is perfect. that it is what it is. that the consistency of change is the only constant, and everything in the wake of experience unfolds with utter beauty.

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i've got to break a habit of worrying, but it's more addictive than cigarettes.

i've got to find an embrace that doesn't release me too soon or hold me too long.

i've got to find a niche that doesn't crowd me.

i've got to find more reasons to keep moving.

it's never enough and it's always too much.