In the old days
when I was a nobody
I needed a mentor
in order to groom me into success
into self-actualisation and to bring
all my dreams into reality
and so I found a mentor
and I learned of him the 3 principles
to success and complete achievement
And yes, since you ask,
I shall pass on to you the 3 principles
that my mentor had learned from someone before

And I hope you in turn
will pass on this secret
of the 3 Principles
to nobodies who might come
knocking at your door


PRINCIPLE 1
Know what you want

PRINCIPLE 2
Never tell them all that you know

I remember crying over Chopin.
I was twenty years old
and coming down from alcoholism.
There were words in the
hammers and strings,
but I couldn't understand
a word that they were saying.

Around that time I started meditation.
A room to renovate, I took
a step-ladder to the astral realm
and spilled poetry from my dreams.
I was twenty years old
and in the process of quitting.
It's a slow-burner, even now.

There were doctrines for self-actualisation.
I was moved to understand them
in a smattering of conspiracy theories,
Buddhist mantras, and lazy hikes.
I wore sunglasses and shorts
in Gran Canaria, and strived
to get you out of your dress.

I remember swimming in the cenote
and conjuring breeze from
the warmth of your breath.
I would soak into wine and
stolen cigarettes, as you toyed with
your bikini in the mirror. I remember
the freckles along your inner thigh.

Around that time I worked a living
scanning bar-codes and forcing
hangovers down until lunch.
There was a tiredness gained
that cannot be shaken off,
and a lust for justice
amputated at the tip.

There were road-side sandwiches
and flicks of hair in the wind.
You pinned me to the bed
and showed me what love meant.
Three years on and I'm an old man.
There are friendships contained
in memories, as I think back to when
I was twenty years old.

A resounding truth sticks to every wall,
Like meat on teeth, beneath.
Surfacing tragic like cyber sugar on the conscious,
Of every intelligent automaton.
Devaluing the humanity we created in sleep,
Harbouring our nylon smiles and effortless chaste.
Ripped flesh on creations, godlike
Burned images, sigil instilled in culture
Nocturnus, bleeding in harmony
Locomotion of self actualisation homunculus cured
Rid of transcendental elements at the first instance
Of empathy, drawn out in an empty tenure
Interlocking lines-moving, spread out against
Aluminium and glass, superseding the law of nature,
Bubbles, echoing through the apology of life
Bursting forthwith and raining bleach and decadence,
On delirious heads-boiled in sand for life eternal.
Your masquerade, a bloodline polluted
By perfumed green shading, eliminating the best
Carrion, complicated sadness, basic molecular print
Our progenitor, poster child for carbon-based reluctance.
Menial beings, occupying space to nowhere,
Hotel rooms full of dust,
Lying figures, tossing themselves on typewriters
Creating a kaleidoscope of prose.
Hands, arms & legs bound by penance,
And the delayed snot of the diseased
Winding amongst this polystyrene city.
Sunken into a cosmopolis refuse,
The anchor to all that is pure,
Heaven is your populace.
And your ego is the gel that destroys our relation.

I lived in greatest of expectation
Wished I'd find one to share my grief
Someone to understand my situation
And I ultimately found her,to my relief

I was you
So obsessed with the pleasure I found
To her control where I was bound
So cultured to having her around
Lost in conversation, love as common ground

I was you
I trusted without asking
Yes,it was really tasking
loved like there's no hurting
Held on like we was never parting
Kissed deeply and memorably
Embraced tightly and inevitably
Lost it all,as I vividly recall

I was you
When the love became history
yet I couldn't solve the mystery
when all I tried to say only irritated
and the warmth of her evaporated

I was you
when my tears flowed like a stream
and I just couldn't bear the steam
when scary was every dream
I wouldn't survive an hour it'd seem

I was you
I watched blindly as days went by
Even my tears said goodbye
my eyes bloodshot and dry
like I was doing **** and sky high

I was you
when aches became my pleasure
And with loneliness I spent my leisure
When mistakes cost me my treasure
was told for memories time's the only eraser

I was you
when I was axed and "vexed"
and no one else worked
for my moods were a pendulum
and moving on an extra curriculum
when I wanted to see her in the next
and I would still call her and text

I was you
I was empty for I had lost a universe
she was in every song and every verse
threw away chances,missed every pass
ignored the glances,a man under a curse

I was you
but one day I started to rebuild
I was tired of looking back
and needed to get back on track
I started to count my blessings and luck
To see the much I have over the little I lack

I was you
But self actualisation came with time
a long time of wandering lost
years of being dead to life and living a ghost
of thinking letting go was a crime
when I gave up forever and ceased to be blind
placed pieces of my heart in a bag and let reign my mind

I was you
when I wouldn't live without her
and I reopened every healed scar
when I felt that if it wasn't her it wasn't love
until I realised we only lose what we don't deserve

I was you
Till I believed I could find myself again
that if I couldn't overcome I could live with the pain
when I forgot the innocence and embraced the stain
and instead of crying I started dancing in the rain
I was you

I'm addicted to my favourite
non-existent recreational drug,
cueing in; compulsive lying.

The additional side effects
to my mind, soul and heart,
ain't as bad as I thought.

When I'm being questioned
about my troubling mental health,
I lied straight through my teeth,
that nothing could **** me,
yet I wanted to **** myself
the exact same hour.

I once lied to a friend that,
I will stay by her side
but in actuality,
I didn't even want to
stay in this world

But the biggest lie
that ever happened
is by telling myself
that I will soon be alright,
and lying is my only
coping mechanism

I think.

You know what I love
about this addiction,
is that it's a distraction
from the real harm,
which is self-actualisation,
of my ailing self.

There will be another day to be remarkable,
another day to be compassionate.
I will save the pandas after
I have slept this off.
There will be another day for self-actualisation.
Today I shall be drunk
and quite intolerable.

Every person
in the world
is deserving
of care:
care for their feelings
care for their health and well-being
care for their self-actualisation
care for what they need to function optimally
care for their joy and happiness.

Disassociated

From self-actualisation.

This is where

Love

Intervenes
Lady J

Geisha of the universe

Whistling crackle sounded rain
Lying alone but full.
Focused, determined and relaxed
landscaping the universe that's forever faded.
Projection of kindness and health and happiness of the unknowns.
Love and contentment and absolute everything.

To give whole heartedly, so openly, so vulnerably?

Warmth, safety and harmony.
To be caught in a storm, blinded by the truth with inner realisation so true and precious and undeniable.

Wonder and actualisation to become so free and happy is to be a dream innocently living.

World has stopped so quiet and still, only droplets of thoughts are heard.
The warmth of being in a dream and the perspicasity of the light that is to come.

I am changing.
But the idea of me that I want to put out into the world isn’t.
Who I want to be and the parts of myself that I don’t like are conflicting.
I stand firm on foundations that feel crumbly at the fact my morals feel proud.
I worry that I think too much about what others think.
Other times I worry I don’t think enough about that at all.
I’m scared that if I’m honest about how I feel I’ll be met with judgement.
For no real reason, other than what I feel is anxiety.
My feelings have no solid ground, so of course they are easy to judge.
Does that really mean that they are judging me though?
By that logic, are my morals really mine or just my anxieties of what people will think?
The few things I used to take pride in being, I might not be anymore.
So who am I?
Will the people who loved me then, love me now?
Anxiety is a feral hungry beast.
Pacing and pattering through my veins.
Thumping and crashing in my heart like a misplaced 808.
“I’m really not an anxious person.”
Shakily fall from between my lips, reluctantly.
As I realise, I’m anxious to even admit that im anxious.
Am I supposed to have life figured out in my almost mid twenties?
Probably not.
Do I feel like I should have a vague sense of direction about it?
Maybe.
Although I’m battling with the idea that no one ever really knows what they want to do and people just get stuck.
So maybe I’m the lucky free thinker.
Or maybe I’m the delusional directionless unemployed rambler that people avoid at pubs.
Good job I avoid pubs.
I thought I was a powerful, political, before my time, feminist.
Who was just “too awake for the world before me”.
Miserable because my eyes are open too wide, that sort of thing.
Identifying as a realist.
But maybe, just maybe, I’m just a miserable old *******.
Creaky kneed, bleak thoughted.
I never used to think that much.
Well I did, I just never categorised myself as an overthinker.
I was wrong.
I just overthought about irrelevant things, out of my control.
Unimportant to spiral over.
Now that I and the people I love are centre to my anxious internal ramblings, i realise just how wrong.
I thought growing up would entail control of your mind.
Coping mechanisms.
Maybe growing up is realising coping is just getting on with it.
That prospect has never sat right with me.
“Queen of holding on to things” my mother often refers to me as.
Hoping to god I’ll learn to one day “park”, as she would say, just one of the things that make me miserable.
On any of the number of days I choose to let it pop back up.
Which would feel like everyday.
If you catch me on a “everything is bothering me day” I’d tell you I’m playing whack a mole with everything bad that’s ever happened in my life.
And although I know how it goes, I lose every time.
Maybe that’s because I’m so dedicated to my hobby.
Not a healthy one, I have none of those.
I’m referring to my insane ability to play basketball with chucking my feelings into my **** it bucket.
Until of course I realise that the **** it bucket isn’t looking so **** it anymore.
When you’ve felt so much for so long does contentness ever feel less like emptiness?
Does the peace ever get quieter?
Do the problems get realer or do we just stop creating them?
The questions I’d have asked myself a decade ago take a soul-wrenchingly, starkly, different tone.
So am I ungrateful?
Am I ungrateful that my biggest problem is anxiety?
My biggest problem is fake problems.
How 13 year old me would laugh in my face and spit venom with the tone.
I went through so much to get to where I am now.
To feel like I cheated?
Like I somehow don’t deserve it?
Not to say I earned it, but why would I deserve it less than anyone else?
I am aware.
I always have been.
I see the flaws in my thinking
The excruciatingly humane flaws in my self.
People fault me on seeing every one of their flaws, and pointing it out.
But how do I stop thinking them?
“Being aware is the first step.”
Yes.
Everyone finishes there.
Is there a second step?
Me and a few other million people are wondering.
Nothing else in life is like that.
You’re given an equation.
It’s explained, you get an answer.
It’s right, or it’s wrong.
Mentally we are left exhausting all the options.
Flaw after flaw, fault after fault, lapse after lapse.
For what?
No closer to answers just an opportunity to do it wrong differently next time.
Exhausted from thinking
The thoughts are chaotic like 5 point round abouts.
I am terrified to verbalise them.
I don’t know what I want.
Being heard isn’t enough anymore.
I don’t want solutions.
What are we left with?
Nothing practical.
Just a wish and a dream of one day feeling differently.
Being content with being content.
Accepting serenity as peace, not a moment to be ruined.
There is a paradise out there, I just haven’t met her and neither has anyone I know.
Does that make me sound like a believer?
Like actualisation is tiered with heaven?
As I get older, the more I realise that it just might be exactly that, for atheists.
Try as you might, I don’t believe it’s possible in life.
I’m upset that in my realism and internalised honesty, that I forced my brain to block out so much of my life.
I focused on the negative things and considered myself to be being true to history and my past.
Remembering is important.
Yes.
I wish I remembered the name of my favourite song on the dance mat.
Not how upset I was when I found out it had been thrown away.
I wish instead of getting so hung up on how people left, why people left or how terrible they are for leaving, that I remembered how good it was to know them.
I’m worried that my brain is not who I want it to be.
I’m scared that everything I hate in this word is an externalisation of everything I hate in myself.
I’m anxious that all of my darkest thoughts, are the truest testament to who I am as a person.