Photos taken + words written January 2019; Town of Onondaga, New York.
It’s negative one degree’s out.
I don’t know why I thought, even the few minutes I’d be out here,
I could handle this with kid gloves on.
My chest feels tight; I was holding my breath.
It’s hard to stay present when the temperature is killing you.
I read yesterday that all that is not “matter”
Is nothingness; and in that nothingness
We can connect with the unmanifested.
That is to say, by paying attention to the
Space between things, between walls, between us and them,
We can find our soul.
But an hour later I was in a sauna wondering,
“What about temperature? What about oxygen and carbon monoxide?”
What about the very things that allow us to BE
In these bodies as manifested in solid matter?
Are these nothingness? We can’t see the space
Between these molecules, because we can’t see the molecules.
Therefore, if space is the portal into the unknown,
and matter we can see represents the known
What about the known matter, that we cannot see?
I know I am sad and scared and nervous to get back to Los Angeles,
Yet I cannot see these emotions. Perhaps
They are just chemical: a physical
manifestation that my soul wanted to experience
Through the sensitivity of humanness.
I try to trust that this is what is supposed to happen.
That I signed some contract many lifetimes back
That would hex me against technology and lovers where I
Would in turn get so used to it that I would
Hex myself. So what I’m still trying to figure out is,
Am I meant to somehow fight against all this?
Claim that I deserve better,
It doesn’t have to be this way,
Break my back to overcome every obstacle
And actualize my life into one that my soul and ego were proud of?
Or do I surrender into what is? Surrender that
Maybe I won’t ever get married or have a family
Maybe I will have to move back home
Maybe I’ve made my family’s life worse by being in it,
I keep seeing myself make mistake after mistake.
I try to do better, yet the resistance is powerful.
I try to overcome every self-destructive tendency
Until pleasure wants to take over and
Just run the show.
He was going through this same battle.
He surrendered.
I was still fighting. I am
Still fighting.
But I no longer blame him
For breaking our contract.