Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Hopeless Hereafter

I don't yearn for anyone, but I yearn to be in love again. The feeling has ambushed and fled to abrupt abandonment so many times that I know not how to let love stalk and attack anymore, I'm bashful even when it comes to loving myself. I only know to withdraw further from human inclinations and hide out in dreamland, thereby seeking sanctuary in the voracious unconscious where an open flame burns brighter in the satisfaction of sleep. Long after a riddling REM sleep dissolves into the dungeon of consciousness, I am only writing my own obituary. Even surrounded by a group of people, I feel so separated, so trapped in being a peculiar temptress, cuffed to my own obscure beauty, a lusty physical burden that tyrannizes me ceaselessly to the point I am unrecognizable to myself. Whoever that girl is, she doesn't have my sympathy, she has my resolve and whatever remains of my joy--joy hidden somewhere in her detached, disembodied soul.
This supposed self-created destiny is nothing more than an amorphous epiphany of inebriation, schemed up in a manic moment of audacious hope. Hope for what? Love beyond waking? Is there really such a thing? The ambiguity of my aimless path becomes more daunting each day, the lantern I carry only lights a few small steps ahead while the rest is reposed in a matrix of mystery. Wise men and prophets speak of "knowing thyself" or being true to self, but how can I know God if I'm always exploring forbidden sides of my soul? Is God nestled in the crevasses of inward conservation? The world speaks of conserving resources, but what of conserving self? What of Conserving God? Are dreams our own personal productions or nothing more than a gregarious gateway to connect with God? Is this the final frontier humanity is allotted to pursue a faultless and nondenominational association with the divine? In my respective dream corner, I find the only haven of sound solutions to these hounding questions, a place I am able to fully love God and the souls of men that would dare to meet with me in the midst of a realm of resolution. The yearning only dwindles when I am free to roam on astral beaches and build sandcastles of dreams and make believe i am tiny enough to live inside of them. Sure, I imagine the castles will wash away in a run out of fantasy once the tides of sunlight sweep over my bedroom, but for a moment, I am free to build grainy towers of longing, towers of faith, towers of healing-- somewhere in a place that is only regulated God, the angels, and whatever love is left after this lifetime of doom.

Speaking of doomed lifetimes... (no offense Layne, I only use that in transition.) The other day Layne informed me of something interesting. "Jessica, Gabriel brought you to me, what makes you think he wouldn't bring me to see you?" Today Layne was feeling dramatically better. Once I fell asleep, I heard his intoxicating voice very clearly and he was there waiting for me with a roguish glow in his eye, evidently in much happier spirits and appearing more beautiful and peaceful than I'd ever seen him before. Not too long ago that wasn't the case and the nature of our conversations were far more grizzly and unsettling. Dreaming of Layne generally involves inescapable elements of a brutal and unforgiving reality. The reason largely being that certain dream characters are supposedly mirrors of our true selves and Layne has always been a challenging and vacillating reflection to gaze into.

Sometimes I dare myself to draw out a side of men that they never wanted to show. I don't know why. I didn't have a terribly rough life, no harder than I made it on myself. Perhaps my own mental barriers are why I've come to enjoy seeing Layne. I've seen so many sides of Layne that I can safely say, Layne is the whole package, had he avoided his own undoing, he would have have been an astounding person all around--indefinitely. People already attest to this, but I mean for the long haul, Layne would have been the type of man a person dreams of having in their corner. He's always made for a very unpredictable and fascinating dream ally and as I met with him a few weeks ago, I detected there were some emotional leftovers mushrooming their way to the surface of his restless spirit.

"It's hopeless Jessi. Look at me." He motioned his arms around in a half circle and then looked downwards into his lap and began tugging on the waistline of his jeans.

His profile was so engaging to look at. I stood motionless for a minute and admired the loveliness in the symmetry of his gorgeous face and the way his light eyelashes washed into his fair skin. Staring at how beautiful he was, I still saw what was really cresting underneath the surface of his delicateness. I could practically inhale all the telling scents of intuition that told me he still didn't know how to love himself, to care for himself, to discover and reclaim his own regenerative power. Beyond how attracted i was to him, I became furious at what he had said and in the fury, I felt the jawline of my panic stricken face drop as the word "hopeless" sunk further into my psyche. I wanted to let my tears run out all over his frail shoulder. More than that I wanted to grasp at his curly hair and kiss his smooth forehead, but I knew any hint of affection would only make matters worse. We'd get lost on each other's silky lips again as we had in a dream before and then I'd have to wake up before I had a chance to talk some sense into him. Yet, I thought deeply and considerably of kissing the life and hope back into him as my frantic hazel eyes danced on the lines of his lips. I suppressed the stupid spin the bottle urges and in the affliction my own transmuted emotion, I erupted all over him in a jumbled blizzard of anger and passion.

"How can you say that to me?" He peered up from his intertwined fingers, not looking straight into my eyes, but slightly above to a few red curls, probably floating in the torrent of my warped and unreadable body language. We were both wearing simple white shirts, my garment was more fitted and he had on a well-worn black leather jacket that made his fatigued shoulders appear larger than they were. I placed one hand on my hip bone and the other palm I offered out like I was trying to feed a baby animal, nearly touching the thick, rusty hair on his chin in the gesture. "How do you expect me to wake up after hearing you talk like that? Isn't it bad enough I visit you like you're a drug? The instant I arrive, I see how alive you still are and yet you remain in a desire to wallow in self-destruction and throw up the decoy defense anytime someone tries to care about you. You were never hopeless and now you are one of the few symbols of hope I even have left to turn to. Why do you think I still come to see you? I need hope just as much as you do Layne. There came a time when I stopped being afraid to spend time with you and I understood how life-altering it was, I saw past your roughness and the self-inflicted wounds to who you really are, to who God designed you to be. That design is perfect to me Layne, the dreams are perfect and you have inadvertently brought so much love into my life that I don't even need love from anybody when I'm awake, you are more than enough for me." For a second I thought I saw his blue-gray eyes begin to water, but he turned his face away and sniffed stiffly. I wanted to pet and coddle him, but the only place to sit was on his lap and I didn't know if he was flirting with the idea of hugging me or hitting me.

I have moments in these exchanges with him where I wonder if I can convince him of his self worth and maybe, just maybe, I will wake up to find that Layne is still alive and that I somehow succeeded in time traveling back in the course of dreams to save him from his own wrath. While time traveling can be facilitated in dreaming, resuscitating someone as distraught and broken as Layne was...well maybe he was right, maybe it is hopeless.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Vacuum of Verse

 
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When the embarrassment subsides
perhaps I'll wake up to the perfect life
I watched illogical imagination slowly die
in a hapless August sunrise
Surprised the lack love in my life
didn't murder it long ago
the blade of truth bit my palm after an omen of hope let go

I know not the day I kissed her goodbye
but now I never see the look of delight in my eye
the extrinsic enthusiasm i painted as a child
has been squandered on men I haven't spoken to in a while
those doors were crazy glued shut
and when i wake up, i don't give a flying fuck
yet when i think too much
i scroll through the black book of past loves
and wonder if I missed writing a genuine love story
as opposed to the abuse and pain constantly unfolding before me
now it seems an inkling of a fairytale
is like weaving a cheap, eggless basket
you'd rather be fishing
while I snuggle up in a casket

late into the hours of a Bahama night
angels come to me ringing secrets of starlight, forbidding sleep
only after I've found it i discover I'm not asleep at all
but tucked in altruistic arms of dream friends
the only people left to pray for me when i fall
far, far, far from grace
no means to a fast end and no more love to taste

long after i wake up
i feel invisible angels floating, dream between dream
rut between rut
always hearing the voices of fate
and crying for other people's mistakes

i never feel sorry for myself
no desire to revisit that hell
i can't pander my pity when I'm not awake
i feel peace all around me to the point of nothingness
I've been alone so long I've forgotten how God wants me to kiss

i got so dirty and gritty that i couldn't see my own skin
rushed up the stairs with sore limbs
slammed another door that wouldn't let me in
flipped on the faucet and prayed again
undressed quickly and tossed the sweat soaked clothes to the floor
the water couldn't clean me fast enough when they called me a whore
i could feel my bones vibrating as I begged Jesus to keep me level
to balance my sobriety, my emotions, my scattered thoughts
keep me on an even keel of health and banish the devil
the world of chaos spins so fast
that I know not who it rotates for anymore
God or a master of illusion knocking on a sinners door

In a shower of suicide I heard them talk about me
he was right, i wanted to do it so bad i could taste my brain bleed
i didn't want to sow seeds or grow life in a tainted reality
i only wanted to end the illusion of me

2009(C) Jessica Robbins