Saturday, August 28, 2010

I daydream about the urgency of his touch
Are the emotions within, without
too much, too much?
He's come to me so many times
Like a black butterfly to a jasmine vine
challenging, empowering the spring scent
batting his blue trimmed wings on my flower
White, white sweetness washed and devoured
I know not a slice of his sincerity anymore
He may be addicted to feeding
on me, his secret red red power
He escapes and seeks me out hour by latex hour
He whispers to me that I won his care
Like care is some kind of kiss from a frog
How these creatures leap when we stop looking
Halloween, Halloween, smell the candy cooking!
Impossibility, lost the ring oh the ring
I saw the wedding ring fall off
maybe that means I'll finally be where I belong
With him
Magnified by our stature, long legs, and songs
Compelling me to play along
but dreams won't right his wrongs

The duality is like our own gospel
passages of praise only he and I understand
Like Jesus forgiving the stealing man
He goes on stealing still
with only one finger on one hand

(c) 2010 Jessica Robbins
I remember the very first psychic dream I ever had. It's almost like the memory of a first kiss. Something you imagine or anticipate, the event nearly seems impossible until you arrive there in the dark, witnessing it with your own lips, your own inner eye. I remember now when it all started happening. It was right around my 18th birthday. For over a year, I’d had a somewhat steady boyfriend, Ben. In hindsight, I suppose I didn’t love him in a raw passionate, uncontrollably ferocious, thoroughly loving kind of way, but I did care about him dearly and affectionately. His confidence is what I remember the most about him, he had a balanced confidence that I lacked. Perhaps that's why I was drawn to him. He used to call me his "little girl." They all call me that, I don't know why, like I'm some kind of fucking childish house pet. I'm not so little and I'm not so girlish. I don't shop like a girl, I don't know that I even have sex like a typical girl, I'm not overly committed to my feminine side. I'm just a lean, mean, spirit machine. Well, maybe I'm not so mean.

So in the midst of my senior year in high school, I went away on a ski trip to Sugar Mountain with my family to celebrate my birthday, leaving my boyfriend alone for only a matter of days. While I was on my vacation, far up in the forest in the sky, the dream came to me. I saw Ben having sex with his ex girlfriend. It was all too clear and unobstructed. I remember it so perfectly and wholly because it’s the kind of dream you don’t want to be true. Yet there he was, romping around with another woman in plain lucid view.
I woke up in partial shock and shook my head, “Ben would never do that.” I assured myself. But the images of the dream refused to abandon my memory, they ate away at me, forcing me to ask questions and doubt the foundation of my relationship with Ben.

I enjoyed the ski trip, I remember praying and connecting to God in a way I never had before. Snowy retreats will do that to a person. Everything was going so smoothly, I felt refreshed and ready to start the rest of my life and grow into the woman heaven meant me to be. But the dream of Ben's betrayal continued to gnaw at me. As soon as I returned home, I immediately phoned Ben. The conversation got off to a very wobbly and unsettling start. He asked polite questions about my family and the ski trip, but the energy on the receiver was far less than optimistic and glad. In his odd silence, I mentioned the dream.
“Ben I had this bizarre dream, I saw you sleeping with your ex girlfriend, I mean you had sex with her in the dream.” I began steadily. “Did you see Mandy while I was away?”
“What? Mandy? No.” He stuttered and fell quiet again. He took a heavy breath and then said, “But Jessi I’m coming over to your house, I have to talk to you.”

Within 20 minutes Ben was there. I was so happy to see him. My happiness was fleetingly short lived. I tossed my arms around him and tried to hug him, but he gently pushed me away and buried his caveman like head in his hands.
“I can’t do this, I have to tell you.” His eyes began to well up. “I didn’t sleep with Mandy, but I did sleep with another girl while you were away, your dream was right Jessi, I cheated on you. I didn’t do it to hurt you, but I have to man up about it and tell you directly now. I thought about not telling you, but I feel so guilty, you're a good girl, you did not deserve for me to cheat on you.”

I gasped and felt waves of horror and disappointment bash my insides. My future with him began to crumble. I didn’t want to be angry at all. There was no anger, there was only compassion. I tried to set it right and without taking a breath, I forgave him instantly, right then, I forgave him and told him we could work it out. He shook his head and told me he was leaving me for the other girl. I knew what the other girl was doing, the psychic, "all knowing" ability had begun to function while I was awake too. I knew the every detail of what had gone down.

Ben was bragging to the other girl about me. He was telling her what a beautiful, wonderful, and sweet girlfriend I was. He was always saying things like that to people and bragging about me. That’s one of the reasons I loved our relationship. The other girl saw it as a challenge. She did not give a fuck about Ben, she just looked at him as some kind of conquest, she was only drawn to him because he was mine and unavailable. So they both got further drunk at the party they had met at and then she took advantage of the fact I was out of town and he was there alone. If I’d had been in town, I would have been at that party with him. She was just using him to give herself an ego shot, she wanted to prove to herself that she was pretty enough to steal someone else’s boyfriend away. She wanted Ben to talk about her the way he’d just rambled on about me.

The better woman floundering within me wanted to tell him everything and demand he grow some sense and see straight, look at the bigger and more logical picture here. At least try to see through the tempting lust she had gotten him stoned on. I didn’t though. I let him cry on my shoulder and soon he told me he had to go. I didn’t try to resist or plead with him after that. Moments later, we said a peaceful goodbye and he walked out the door and then I was alone with the accuracy of the dream. It seemed so harmless; the tiny, telling dream. But after years of dreaming the truth, after so many insights that originated in my head and then snowballed into uncut life before my eyes, I can see how a single dream about a disloyal boyfriend would set the tone for the rest of my life.

Ben went on to get the girl pregnant. He married her soon after. As I had predicted, she was just trying to validate herself and did not care a lick about him for the right reasons. After the baby was born, she cheated on Ben. They were divorced within a year. Afterwards, Ben tracked me down, apologized all over again and admitted that he'd made a huge mistake and he still loved me. By then, it was too late, I had moved on.

Friday, August 27, 2010

 
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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Swirling Thoughts of Tempest Transgression

This temple is an unrecoverable abyss of despair. I have reached a place where there is little enchantment with life. Cunning death, the only untouched fruit, would taste like nine sweet apples to my tongue.

No one knows I am here and my child is the only soul who would notice my untimely departure. Would she cry into her pillow or would she mourn me little and be more complete without my incompleteness in her life?

I altered myself in such a way that I lent the complete illusion of fluid logic to the scattered beast that is my fucked up existence. It's purposeless. My accomplishments are ripped away like my very soul is obsolete and untraceable.

I walk normally, I drive by all the stupid rules, but as an entity I am unruly and eternally on a course of death. In him my dreams are all repressed. He has a way with his lies. I kept my mouth mostly shut and sewed my funeral dress.
How much longer will God keep me here? I am a maid to misery. No friendships to speak of to thee, although I try to be as friendly as I can possibly be...
To every passing soul, they all toss a waning wave, say a quick hello and then blaze waywardly into the mirage of time with more important places to go. Am I not a place? What nerveless little of a location do I know? To me I am home, these doors will never close.

How can all of these people just congregate and converse like everything is fine? They're all frauds. People you see everyday, people you think are humble are arrogant in secret. People you think are kind, say the most hateful, unflattering things behind your back. As children we are enthusiastically introduced and thrust into this society, as if it's some spectacular place to be or grandiose rite of passage to discover sex and drunkenness. It's not. It's a sentence to be owned by urge and thirst alone. Then we are expected to give what little money we have to a system that is utterly broken and angularly parasitic and uphold some kind of fucking suave tea party in the process, making small talk all the while just to fill the emptiness within us. It's all just a a giant cross, even these personal relationships that are not personal. No. People become more impersonal and self-centered by the day, they are but thorns and nails. It's an opportunity not to thrive and find some kind of harmony or deliverance, no. We are granted a chance to be born and executed in this way, to be examples of what power does to rebels who speak with God's audacity, we are undermined by all of the people we seek to spare and free, we are captive to these terms of instability and incompetence. Liberty has come and gone and shall breathe again only when you are dead.
The jumbled ambient disaster ensues
lack of desire, lack of love
and a dangerous abundance of peculiar youth
has made me a scrawny recluse
the isolation of each day
more knots on the noose
uncounted chores, mounting unwritten dream lore
wicked fire tellers implore
strokes of fickle fate
they never stay, they never stay
they test me & try me
a little red sports car that reads
"please drive but don't dare buy me"
like I'm a fucking food sample plate
after they ate and had their way
their spirits sway, make excuses
ignore my protests and dismay
and levitate, levitate away
withdraw from unity
the collective price I pay
a beekeeper with many stings
but no honey to taste

consistency I cry for you
the jewel that is emotional dependence
a mine of common ground
yet I feel stoic and just
measuring the distance of sound
wails sounding any hint of order
is disrupted by a glance and gone

all that remains
a bruised reflection in a lily pond
and remnants of a fragile cloth
a painting that will never dry
like the fleeting generosity in his wet eyes

honesty demands my trust
I trust I gave it a fair try
but I trust more
that he was just another swine
rooting in me like a trough
the blond yarn that was his hair
mislead me to assume his soul
was just as soft
It was not

I suppose I never truly loved him
he was just another man to wear
but pettiness is hardly fashionable
and so he was worn out
like an old pair of tennis shoes
sooner the soles were bare
far from impressive and laughable
there were sharper tools to spare
but i don't visit any shed now
God let me avoid
childish stagnation and shots of slurry
it provokes the mother of all worry
and my concern was proven vain
my despair falls with disdain
for he was hardly a companion
after he left in the mornings
I found far greater comfort
in the illusions of Layne
even if he was a mere ethereal splendor
somehow he was an ally and soul defender
but at the end, the thought of any man
is just a life ender
every union is nothing of unity
none of them understand me
they stamp returned to sender on my heart
and from all grace, i soon shall depart
for if you think I'm right it isn't so
not the cloak of motherhood or the promise of dreams
can make a shattered lifetime of displacement
appear well, healthy, or whole
No, no. no
We all know I'm a shameless pretender
and so the last morsels of care
are becoming stale and cold
and common sense is colder
a frozen fairytale
elves are more loved by Claus
and i'm nothing more
than the embodiment of the lost cause
forgotten, cast aside, in these flames I smolder
wondering if I shall ever find my way
when I get a little older

(c) 2010 Jessica Robbins

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Loving the Enemy

I had a dream in which I saw my worldly father, I saw him inside a man the world might make my enemy.
The last time prior, many dream pools ago, I saw my genetic father in dreamland around Christmas. Dad gave me a gift. I opened the box to discover a purple shirt. Purple often means healing, and the shade also made me think of the purple cloth on the cross around Easter. Yet in the dream I calmly set the purple shirt aside, looked dad in the eye and said, "You are my real present."

When I awoke I knew I still loved my father, in spite of the fact he abandoned me and currently has no involvement in Aurora's life, and in spite of the fact his ongoing preoccupation with money and worldly things ever drive him to falter in loveless dishonesty and insincerity--- I love him still. The irony is that dad thought by being cold and snobby I would learn how to make my way in the world. He was wrong. His actions made me resent the world and in coming to my disgust for this hardened, regulated place, I found the softness of Jesus through dreams and visions and love not of the world. Now I feel infinite gratitude for my father's careless thoughtlessness, for in observation of his earthly selfishness, I was better capable to understand the unrivaled freedom of divine selflessness. But beyond this and far past the tediousness of confining domestic lines, I know with abounding faith and clarity that the dream was additionally expressing another critical lesson; the patient, healing love of the heavenly Father is the greatest gift of all.

I contemplated much of this after this most recent appearance of dear dad early this morning, and in peace I came to see the message of today was simple. The goodness of the Father resides even in thine enemies, it lingers in those who have stumbled constantly and wronged and betrayed and slandered you or anyone else. Recently I have felt this man in the dream has been allowing others around him to point at the tiny splinters in the eyes of others while ignoring the enormous $44,000 beam in their own eyes. It makes me upset and frustrated. Frustrated mostly because the intended lessons keep being neglected and downplayed for the sake of "survival," (which here is just another word for greed) rather than seeing that sincere service is the only true way. If you neither love nor serve your enemies but only love and serve your lies and your own "survival," what then reward do you have?

I love the man in the dream. I love him very much. I love him because we see the same dreams and I love him because he knows not what he does by lying and denying the very dreams Gos has offered us. But I hate his lies, I hate the system that makes him feel he must lie and I hate the dreamless carnal, jealous based perception that has muzzled him from talking about his own dreams. Lies are the source of corruption and lies breed torment and confusion. As much as I loathe the lies and the greed that drives him to lie, I truly love him and his soul. Just as my father had to leave so I could fathom heavenly acceptance, so too I suppose my dream friend had to deceive all of those people so both he and I could truly understand.
Which leads me to this most important verse.
‎"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is heaven." -Jesus in Matthew 5:44

Jesus goes on the imply that in this you shall find true perfection. Mere survival is not perfection, service in washing the feet of the people who step on you is the only way to ascend to ultimate perfection. Love is repairing, it is how God mends the broken wings and the broken lying minds and mouths of His children. At it's pure essence, love is always perfect. Don't wait to use the good oil of perfection on your enemies, don't wait to wash their feet with your last bar of soap, and don't wait to give them your last dream.

I'm also including Dr. King's interpretation of this verse.

"Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.

Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That's the time you must do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It's not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system."

"Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That's why Jesus says, "Love your enemies." Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they're mistreating you. Here's the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don't do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can't stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they're mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they'll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That's love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There's something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies."

-Martin Luther King