In the August of 2013, my therapist taught me how to feel pain.

She sat me down on her couch, put her hands around her knees,
And said that I was ready to learn about the juxtaposition of love and self-degeneration.
She recited to me as I was perfectly amended, and wrote down a scripture on the walls
As I watched from her susceptible whole-draining couch.

I began to litter my mind with an effervescence as she talked,
I pleaded and broke my solar plexus to let it shine within me as she spoke fluently about where I will be in times of darker days.
I listened, and let cognizant dissonance transform into regular dissonance,
As we feuded over some emotions that she claimed to know better than I did.
When the dissension was destroyed with my evenly wild dismantled separation from depersonalization and reality,
She stopped scribbling in her book and looked me straight in the eye.

She asked me how I felt and I told her that I did not.
I told her that I am a vessel for the supremacy of a mind that looks at prominent self-worth
the same way it looks at the particles underneath a shoe or the water at the bottom of an under-gated puddle. I told her that I have never opened my eyes since my father figure transformed into the door I used to hide away the tears of the woman who raised me up. I told her that I am a conundrum with a voice that is shadowed by the memories I witness and replay over and over again but have never actually ...really...experienced.
She looked at me like she expected to hear every word that came out of my mouth.
She was more a carnivore in my eyes, and by the time I realized how much an allure surrounded my depositing of impressions into this woman's central nervous system,
I was already telling myself that I have never really needed sanity.

She professed that the boundaries of my life were created by an inner turmoil,
And I would notice its symptoms and prognosis if I would just open my eyes to its horrifying truth.
By the time the room was filled with lies, I had already told enough truths to let her believe that assistance and recovery were the things I came into the room for.
She told me that I was a functional disorder, and I told her that that was patronization.
At the end of the session, we both seemed to feel equal over the fate of a sequel to a previous encounter with our regular conversational dissonance...
She gave me a piece of paper.
And it became a burden.
With a despondency I created out of her bickering and my dejected submission,
She ended the session and let the emotion run free from the tone of voice she used to impractically aid me.
I picked up the paper and picked up my serenity and created more demons out of the gracefulness inside of me,
"Open your eyes, Mzwandile."
I casted hope upon my pocket, crumpled it up until it meant as much as it usually did,
and exited the room with a prescription for a new life.

The mind is what disrupts and corrupts the soul.

-cc

In Welsh
The word "Hiraeth" means
A homesickness for a home
To which you cannot return.
A home which maybe never was.
The nostalgia,
The yearning,
The grief for the lost places of your past.

In Russian
The word "Toska" means
A dull ache of the soul.
A longing with nothing to long for.
A sick pining.
A vague restlessness.

In Yaghan
The word "Mamihlapinatapai" means
A look shared by two people,
Each wishing that the other will
Offer something that they both desire
But are unwilling to suggest or offer themselves.

You say that you love my words
And wonder why I have such a passion for them.
It's simple, really.
I'm merely trying to put a name
To everything you inspire me to feel.

My heart is a compass and you are the North.
I want to tell you that
you are the stars,
& I am a lonely astronomer
trapped in a city of lights.

Although I'm lost in the space
Of where we used to be,
I still find myself
Wandering through traces we left.
Grasping for your incandescence.

You are Polaris and I am caught in your glow.

When they tell you you are made of stars,
do not let them forget what stars are made of.
Stars are not glitter, not stickers on the ceiling,
not there for decoration.
Stars are chunks of collapsing galaxy. They are
hundred-thousand mile wide nuclear furnaces
that consume their surroundings into death.
They are not friendly; they do not exist
to write poems about.
Stars are not made of metaphors. You
are not made of other people’s words.

When they tell you you are made of stars.
look them in the eye and remind them
that so are they, and so is the earth,
and so is the gum on the bottom of your shoes,
and so is the fist you will hit them with
the next time they try to placate you
with their condescending words –
When they tell you you are different from others,
ask them why you should want to be.

Do not let them call you foreign.
Do not let them trap you up on a pedestal,
surrounded by books that cannot hurt them.
Read things that can hurt them.
Your mind is a forest richer than folklore;
do not let your curiosity be reduced to an accessory.
Your intelligence is not a fashion statement.
Your existence is not a novelty.
You are not a metaphor
for someone else’s problems.

When they tell you you are made of stars,
tell them you have always known this.
Tell them you have fire in your bone marrow,
that you are burning with the deaths
of the entire universe before you.

When they tell you you are made of stars,
tell them you know.
Tell them they should keep their distance.

the challenge is to be surefooted
steps soft and light weaving
through the house as it resists
my every move
to stop and kiss innocent cheeks
make sure the bodies are still warm
prepare the same rituals
of hot coffee and cold juice
while the dogs wait patiently
for fresh air, water
they exist only for my care
and hurried touch
this day like any other
you are here as well
asleep in the back room
i know this as certain as i know
the path i need to take
towards my favorite chair
also waiting for me
to take pen to paper
in the near light
in the almost day
the challenge is to create a life story
strangers want to read