Prematurity

 To be torn from a womb prematurely,

To be left to learn to breathe before my lungs even expand.

To be awakened long before anyone's alarm goes off.

To be awake like a ghost in the dark and feel alone in the gloom of awareness.

To learn to read before your peers.

The alphabet seems trivial compared with calculus and essays in year 1.

To be the first and yet the last.

To travel empty roads....kilometres and kilometres of empty roads,

For they are the ones less travelled.

To be fulfilled by lessons learned by centuries,

To be abandoned by reason 

And lose myself in delicious blissful madness.

To wash in waters dirtied by boredom.

To lose the plug and float mid-air instead. 

To yearn for freedom most only dream of at the end of the journey,

To realise how to live ahead 

And yet survive, thrive even.

To risk the rewards, to be afraid and do it anyway.

To understand the book before you read it,

To live ahead....and yet always be behind.

To realise the meaning 

To understand animal souls 

To channel music in silence,

To expand horizons with a smile.

To suffer the consequences of love lost before you walk,

To understand how to live regardless.

And to return the loans,

The loans they did not mean. 

The smiles that did not reach the eyes, 

The souls that are shallower than an eye in the desert.

Heed the warning in your heart,

And still try.

Because the meaning must be somewhere,

Promised by the wind.

There must be a sense to it,

Even if it's 42.

Simplistic answers for simple minds.

Basic tenets for basic beings.

And yet more.

More.

Always more.

Growing in the broth of this poor diet.

Despite the lean helping.

For the strength seems to emanate from those who were torn out of that soup early.

For the chick that cracks the egg a day early,

The bird who falls from the nest and has to learn to fly from the ground.

This is where I come from and this is where I will remain.

For I cannot devolve.

I cannot be ordinarily assembled, 

Although I'd like to be.

For ease of consumption, it would be preferable.

But to stand at the gate

And say I have lived,

And learned, and loved, and yearned, and cried in despair.

That is not a bad life.

That is how I will make my dragon's hoard.

Truth

 

I used to think and hope that there was one absolute truth. 

When I died I wanted to know the whole truth of the universe, in one big flash of recognition and awareness, all of it unravelling like a scroll that ended my wandering. 

After nearly 50 years of living I realise there is not such a thing. Which infuriates me and frustrates me, but there is not a single truth. 

There is only your truth. 

What is true love? Only you know your own answer to that . Some people say it is destiny, God given, eternal, love of a wife or husband, love of  money, love of a cat, love of a child….we all have our own version of the truth. 

Why are we here? We are here to be better people, to serve God, to achieve greatness, to leave a mark, to enhance humanity, to make a difference, to be happy…what is your truth?

There are no absolutes. That is the truth. You make your own truth as you go along and you discover what your meaning is and what your path is. 

I could decide that my meaning of life is to find a husband who loves me above all other women, and not just for my looks, but for my mind, and my heart. I could kid myself that way and suffer for not having it. 

Or I could  make my own truth and say that this life is trying to teach me how to be alone, how to thrive despite being alone, how to love without romance and to pass on that legacy. 

And we kid ourselves into our own truth so that we do not wither and die hopelessly and have no meaning.

And that’s ok. 

We all fumble our way the best we can and arrive at the other end the same way we started, naked, alone, penniless. Whatever happens in between is our truth. 

We all hope exactly the same thing, that someone else will see our vision and share it. For the same reason that we all have: we are social animals who need each other, connection, reproduction, food, comfort, mental stimulation, sex and fun. 

And that’s it. 

Maybe my truth is a bit depressing, but it is real. 

All I hope is that a few share it and live it, so that I am not alone. 

I am frankly sick of being alone in my thoughts, out of sync with society and missing others in their journey. I am always too early, too late, too weird, too smart, too poor, too rich, too busy or too shy, too many animals, too ugly, too pretty, too fat, too wrinkly or too sensitive. Too depressed, too confident, too much. 

And my truth is seldom pursued, because our society still believes in what has not happened for me. And that’s ok. There is very little I can do about that other than alter my own truth. 

I do however agree that whatever your truth is, it includes happiness, personal fulfillment, love and feeling good. Accept that, it is ok. Whatever it is we strive for is okay, and good. 

It doesn’t matter that someone else think it is stupid, or antiquated, or too selfish. 

Do what feels genuine and doesn’t hurt anyone else. 

If that is a religion, or a sect, or an opinion. Then go for it, for as long as you are alive, you answer to your own truth. 

My truth says that love is of utmost importance. I do not eat those I love. 

I help, and selflessly so. 

I love, and selflessly so. Whether I get love in return, I give it. 

I believe I must grow and learn in order to matter. So I do, every day. 

I believe that my soul will one day die….and maybe linger if it is not finished. 

I believe that we are animals, and governed by the same laws that govern animals. We have instinct, and we have desire. But we also have a powerful brain that not all of us use to its full potential. 

I believe that I can make a difference to this world and the collective consciousness, whatever that is. As little as I am, I will make a ripple in the waters of the universe. And it will be imperceptible in centuries to come. But maybe someone will listen and it will make their life better. And I know that I need to believe that in order to feel that I have lived. 

I believe we are all valid and have our own journey, and we own it and I think maybe there is a substance we possess that repeats itself until you have learnt the lesson. If you call that God, I respect that, and maybe I believe that truth to a certain extent. 

I feel cursed by feelings. My truth includes yuckiness that others may not have experienced. But a lot have.  

My truth includes my children. And whether that is just biology, who gives a shit?

My truth says that you shouldn’t hurt anyone else. Is that a consequence of religious upbringing or truth? I don’t know. All I know is I like being good to others, and giving of myself over and over again, despite loss and repeated failures at relationships and love. 

So my truth is a little crazy. 

What about yours?