Strife

There will be blood
There will be casualties on the morning bill
Hold fast to your slowly fracturing soul
Because the descent is so unforgiving
You will find that that voice in your head
Will soon turn cacophonous
Steady yourself; gather your wits about you
For this war is only just beginning
Never forget the treasure that is self-forgiveness
Never lose sight of your inner grace
This strife is a fiery path that must be walked
Walked with strength and conviction
Walked with the very fire that will immolate you

M.M.

Self-Forgiveness

You owe it to yourself to exercise whenever possible your inalienable right of self-forgiveness. Those who are their own harshest critic will know all too well how easy it is to lambast one's self, and how much of a ridiculous struggle cutting one's self some slack can be. But it cannot be that all the amassing weight of guilt, anxiety and shame of your world is meant to be placed interminably on your shoulders. At some point, the sentence will have been served; your time, done. However difficult it may be to forgive yourself, you will know by the kindness bestowed upon you by your very own heart that there is a moment when you must shuffle off those weights. Always remember that self-forgiveness is your sacred right; self-forgiveness is yours to own and to find reprieve within.

M.M.

Sunday Sun

This life turned insipid in color before I even noticed.
The sunlight refracted through the lenses of this world;
refracted and turned insipid before I even knew.
Great clarity of memory intermixed
with the implacable rolling of time
has bred a vision of impeccable despair.
The irradiation that warms my prostrate body
engenders the thought-warping of my mind.
Light and time; distance and silence:
My running-through by this warm Sunday sun.

M.M.

Street

Saw a man, enter from the world,
into the street mid-night during an arc of time.
Pausing a moment in the garish isolating streetlight,
he looked up, away from his own light, toward the
great starless void that had been eyeing him for years.
With a breath and mustered force of might, he let out:
I've done my time—I've earned my right! Now let me move on!
During an arc of time in the black of the night,
soundlessly—spent—he slipped away, back into the world.

M.M.

The Golden Spiral

For Jiho, following a conversation.
Title taken from Primordial's The Golden Spiral. 

So very planar are we to think
the endless loops of our lives to be
merely circular, arcing transversally.
Take the bottom rim of your empty glass,
manipulate it three-dimensionally,
and watch as the world turns concurrently.
Infinity is a simple thing; entropy and
progression are far more complex.
It is a golden spiral on which we
are ascending (or descending) perpetually.
The golden spiral stands as monument,
ominously, in the nexus deep within.
Bravery to partake in our own interrogation;
prospection to move us upward.
Diversity in what makes us
happy and free should be paramount
in this, our grand enterprise of living,
our ascending up the golden spiral.

M.M.

Freedom

For ––

This freedom that we have waxed lyrical about for nights upon drunken night is a concept that we have never really understood, I think, till now. Freedom, you see, is at its fleshy heart a release so far catastrophic to the mundane patterns of daily life – of inveterate society – that we did not really know its implications. Freedom – do you see? – is a thing that is meant to scare you to life – to your true life. We cannot pretend that our own personal freedom is not an unlatching that will eventually lead to the listing of casualties on the morning bill. Freedom is a price to be paid, granted, but also too a world to be won. And it is only those who in themselves recognize that they are in their truest of natures a supposed affront to the mores of society – society, at whatever level (interpersonal, familial or civil) – who are best placed to understand the cost of what it means to be, in the absolute, truly free. What's more, it should not be an illusion to them – these modern Byrons of the world – that though their freedom is a calculus esoteric to the vast majority of their peers; their freedom, even at the very dying of the day, is a recourse, a setting, that they cannot ever really escape. Even by their best efforts or the good graces bequeathed upon them (falsely or otherwise) by the uncaring and unkind and individually irreverent hand of society, their freedom will still invariably come knocking in the midnight hour.

M.M.

Frankenstein

The mixing of electric storm and untempered
imagination leads to the birth of the roiling
mass of flesh and conation. The eldritch dreams of
man portending the stealing of the greatest key of
divinity, coveted by demon and angel alike. As up
from the deep comes terrible and steep the price
paid for immortality, for touching the face of God.
The awe and the wonder that stretches us from
known to pernicious shores. Held steady in hand
the secrets of the universe, which are far too great
to be known by corruptible human life. But the mass
prevails, stepping into the light shattered by lightning
and the hell-gate left ajar. With heaven torn asunder,
the wretched pride of man is crowned complete.

M.M.

Self-Awareness vs. Self-Interrogation

It recently dawned on me that there is a somewhat subtle but critical distinction between self-awareness and self-interrogation. I think the meaning of self-awareness is quite well-understood by people; self-interrogation, however, is something perhaps we do not think much about. By self-interrogation I mean a systematic and sincere questioning of our inner workings, particularly with regards to the conflicts raging inside of us. It is substantiated by the processes of self-awareness of course (how can I question my inner self without being aware of its trappings?), but it is much more involved than simply acknowledging one's own faults. Rather, self-interrogation requires a level of candidness that may very well reach a level of cathartic unease. At its heart is the need to be able to unwrap both the nature of our behaviors, thoughts or beliefs and their origin(s), and if necessary to critique ourselves unabashedly, with the ulterior motive of affirmative self-love. The goal is not simply to become ever more self-aware and expert on our own malfeasances (or virtues, for that matter); it is a vehicle by which we can enact real and substantive change, by which we can set out the next steps in the grand plan for our self-development.

I have spent some time the last few days interrogating myself—or more accurately, attempting to devise a method of thorough and bona fide interrogation. While I feel like I have "nailed down" self-awareness (for the better or worse...), self-interrogation is a concept that is well and truly new to me. This is new ground upon which I tread.

Our Voice

There is in each of us a voice, unique in timbre, idiosyncratic in projection. Rarely do others hear this voice clearly—reserved as it is for the quiet times of solitude and pensive introspection. But it is there, in all of us. And while some of us would seek to guard the utterances from this individuated voice, like a precious but secret treasure, it is my belief that deep inside we all just want to be heard and listened to. To find someone who would sit with us for but a moment and simply attend to our words. How could it not be that true understanding of our selves, by others, is predicated on us vocalizing all that is within us, on conveying without judgement or fear the silent but tremulous stirrings of our most vital soul?

Sunset

fire to starve my soul
water to stunt my growth
this how I slowly dissolve

the storms rage on inside
mountains tremble at my cries
my blood seeps into wells of time

flesh becomes so ephemeral
loss of control more continual
here I go into this black hole

crowned a crown of self-doubt
my mind will stride about
till twilight takes me out

M.M.