Verandah

How The Warrior's Spirit Flies

(To Define) Romance

Verandah

I was sitting on the verandah and all I could think about was how I have come to accept myself. My friends were there, caught up in the moment, smiling docile faces hiding a monster of self-doubt and longing. I recognize this, and ask myself about who I am. There is no easy answer, for if you single out only certain aspects of yourself, you will always fall short. The complexity of the mind is far beyond one definition of the human. In the path of self-discovery, I find that I am all.

I am the abusive husband, who beats his daughter and rapes his wife. I am the wife, who takes it in a brilliant display of masochism, all to prove my love for my husband. I am the daughter, who feels betrayal by her father every time he strikes her. I am a friend of this family, who says nothing and pretends everything is ok.

I am the suicidal girl, who sits in her room at night with a blade in hand, drawing hearts on my forearms to remind me of what I don’t have. I am the drug-using alcoholic boyfriend, who tells this girl she is insane, but she gives a good blow job. I am one of this boy’s friends, who uses the vulnerability of this girl for my own sexual satisfactions. Again, I am the boyfriend, who allows it. I am the mother of the suicidal girl, who makes my living as a prostitute and tries to forget about the problems in my life with every hundred dollars I get. I am the father, who raped the mother and left her for dead, until something in my heart wrenched me to take her to the hospital, and tell them “I found her this way, I don’t know what happened…”.

I am the doting husband, who adores his wife more than all the happiness in the universe. I am the lying, cheating wife who manipulates her husband into giving her whatever she wants. I am the wife’s third lover, who advises her to leave her husband and run away with me, just so I can manipulate her and leave her hurting. I am the son of this woman, who just wants to kill her, because I see the viciousness of her ways. I am the husband again, living in a lovely bubble of denial.

I am the devout Catholic mother, who wants to shield my only daughter from the evils of the world, so I lock her in a closet if she is ever out of line. I am the victimized eighteen year old daughter, who lies to my mother and sneaks out of the house just to go to a free clinic to get a pap smear. I am the boyfriend of this girl, who advises her to leave her bitch of a mother and run away with me. I am the daughter, again, who now must think for myself and listen to no one’s advise, because everyone has lied or been terribly biased towards me. I am the girl’s best male friend, a selfish, arrogant Christian who could really give a shit, but I would never tell her that because my God would not approve.

I am the elderly, crippled homeless man on the side of the freeway, begging for spare change and a second chance. I am the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, who drives up to this man in my Benz and says “You’re a worthless waste of life. Either get a job or commit suicide, you fucking bum!”. I am the girl who reaches into my pocket and gives the last fifty cents I had for laundry to this man and says “It’s all I have. Get something to eat, you poor thing.” I am a member of a group of drunk friends, who decide it would be fun to kick the living shit out of this homeless guy, just because it makes me feel powerful. I am all.

How The Warrior's Spirit Flies

We often speak of what makes the spirit fly
Of what one thing can make us leave our body
for the other world
for the outside
for a place other than the self-piteous hole we have dug
Anywhere but within

The escape can be seen as cowardly
but even the bravest warriors will back away from it
the thought of propelling upward, outward,
from the body, the shell the Gods gave us
can stop the most valiant in their tracks

Many, even when finding what lifts their spirit,
cower away from it, shy away as if it's nothing
& continue on their journey as though
that jewel they found was but a dried leaf

But I am not so weak. I am not so blind.

I have merely set foot into the machine that
brings my spirit to life
Seeing the temperatures of the waters in
the ocean I need to swim across:
boiling, seething hot to frigid, hypothermic chill...
it matters not. For even if I don't survive,
I'll have braved the sea that no one dared.

I will live a legend.

It takes a strong warrior to see what makes
their spirit fly,
a stronger one to accept it, no matter how frightening
or intimidating it might be...

but the strongest one to actually do it.

(To Define) Romance

Romance.
To define Romance... ah yes...
We've all been through this before.
Some say Romance is dead...
but things are only dead if you forget them.
Things are only dead if you do nothing to keep them alive.

Romance... it's alive... between you and I.
And it burns inside me for you.
Love? I hardly know you...
but who am I to deny these feelings I have?

You make the days that much brighter,
and all I have are words on a screen and a sound of your voice.
A country between us and only sound waves connect us...
And still that gives me hope.
For Romance.
That Romance can be something long thought dead,
resuscitated by our love for one another.

How lovely...
two kindred souls... not two born as one and separated,
but two that find one another through their experience.
Love is a journey;
a bond that forms through our adventures and heartaches and
sickened insomnia and apathy...
these are the things that bring you and I together.

Similarities forged through the mere living of our lives...
Romance is the key... Romance will pave the way.

Whatever happened to late night dinner ventures?
Where the two lovers stay up all night talking about philosophy and
politics and history and religion and Romance... how chivalry is
not dead, how life breeds within our hearts if only we can be
strong and brave enough to allow it to consume us...

That's where you and I come in.
We are that experience. We are those moments.
We are all that was once thought dead...
we bring it all back.

If that's not love, I don't know what is.
You make sunrises more lovely,
you make me appreciate breathing,
you even make ice cream taste better, just knowing you exist.
That someone out there exists...
someone like me, who will love me for all my being,
and will go out and search through the bookstores for that
just right novel, that just right poem, just to
tell me that you love me.

No one can touch us here...
there are no boundaries in Romance,
no limits, no rules, no second thoughts.

It is us.
We make it alive.

I suppose that, to define Romance...
it would have to be you and I.
It belongs to us because it IS us...

And I love you more for allowing me...
to love you.
To let me stay up late and write poetry about you.