The Lavender Diary

Minding the world as a queer black person

Volume one

Percy Allen, III

Is it really arrogance that makes me feel like I can change the world? Naivety, perhaps?

Perhaps I cannot … But, maybe I can try?

Can’t I?

“If there’s a book you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” - Toni Morrison

“Pay it no mind.” - Marsha P. Johnson

A thank you to those who have broken me.

A thank you to those who have listened.

A thank you to those who did not believe.

A thank you to those who have read.

A thank you to those with whom I have cried.

A thank you to those who have made me cry.

A thank you to all who have given me a chance to create and to become, art.

Poetry

noun

po·et·ry

literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm

Precedent

Stories from a society long since vanished.

Why?

Why do we choose to flow backwards?

Choose to rip rules from their foundation, sloppily pasting them over the progress of the present?

Where bodies are mere instruments,

Made only to make more bodies?

Where connections are void of love?

The only purpose of our existence devolving to white procreation.

We are returning to a future where our bodies aren’t our choices.

We are returning to a future where love is not love.

We are returning to a future where black lives do not matter.

The precedent of our republic for which it stands.

Under God, indivisible.

With liberty and justice for who?

The Kiss of Remorse

So grateful am I now,

To have opened the parasol,

Which now shields me from the eternal rain.

To have the drops which stream down my face fall once from the sky,

Not of my volition.

So grateful am I now,

To have been vanished from,

To have waded the depths of lamentation,

Of damnation.

To have been kissed so remorsefully,

To have sizzled every synapse in my mind wanting desperately to understand yours,

Get closer to yours,

Become a treasured part of yours.

It is only in vying to forget your smile,

That I learned to see my own.

It is only in the strife of pleading for your smile,

That I learned to love my own.

Vice

What do I think?

Do I think at all?

Do I actually have the capacity to own my thoughts?

Do I actually have the capacity to be fearless in my own thoughts, confide in my own thoughts?

Do I actually have the ability to confide in myself; to trust myself?

The truth is I do not trust myself, I do not trust the decisions that I make.

I do not trust the judgments that I make of others, I am paralyzed by the potential precedent of naivety.

The truth is I am so deathly afraid of everything and everyone that I elect to not make decisions at all.

I find a peculiar safety in the lack of autonomy.

Of begging, pleading for others to hear me, to comply with me.

When they do not, I need so dearly for our decisions to coalesce that I rescind all that which is my own.

My own viewpoints. My own opinions. My own decisions.

My fear of making a mistake makes those around me vices with which I condition myself to rely on.

The devastating drug of validation.

These are my friends, yes.

These are those closest to me, yes.

Yet their proximity has become suffocating, to which I cannot hear my own voice anymore.

Not through the means which it is not audible.

Rather, to the point that I do not listen to it.

I do not trust it.

The cacophony of their voices sings to me again…

“Do you actually have the capacity to be fearless in your own thoughts, confide in your own thoughts?

Moonlit Delusion

So afraid to return, oh yes so very afraid!

Frozen under the ice of pessimism,

I don’t know how to trust, but I wish I did.

I’ve forgotten how to see beauty in others, to see the beauty in others,

How to believe that it is at all possible for others to see in the beauty in me.

Blind to the beauty imbued within me,

Quarantining myself in my own world,

Glittering with success, popularity, and status,

Yet, in a life full of wins,

I often lose myself, lose the ability to sit with myself, lose the ability to be by myself.

So, please, don’t disappoint me again, okay?

Lest I return to the state of being alone,

Reigniting the hurt of flames past enkindled,

Illuminating the walls of my empty world.

The delusions of grandeur, they no longer linger once the sun goes down.

As the moon peeks through the blinds, I can only hope that you’re enthralled by her beauty too,

We’re one in the same!

We masquerade by basking in brightness,

But the light is merely a deception;

It exists only in the eyes of others,

As the moon is only lit by the sun.

The grief of the deluded

My head is so heavy with grief as I write this, that I am left with no choice but to rest it on my shoulder.

How many times more must I be given up on?

How much longer must I survive the epidemic of loneliness?

See, love is not an equal opportunity for someone like me.

Loved by all and the lover of none,

Never have I felt safe,

Never have I felt secure,

I long so feverishly to feel love from another,

That I patiently seek it from any man who even grazes his eyes on me;

So desperate am I, starved am I,

So empty, am I…

So numb, am I…

Not enough begins to feel like love of my life;

To admit it is to be alone again,

To be in a space where most won’t even look at me-

Too feminine,

Too dark,

Too skinny,

Too serious,

How do I navigate a world where all that I am, is considered repulsive?

How do I navigate a world which has abandoned me,

Time and time again?

Assimilationist Assault.

Never will I be a victim of the assimilationist assault,

Nor will I be on the frontlines of the battle for belonging.

Most do not recall the time in which to be radical was to be wrong,

Simple camouflage would do.

The white picket fence would do.

The nine-to-five would do.

Being allowed to be normal, would do.

But what good is normalcy when it is laced with a context that does not include people like me?

Those who look like me?

Sound like me?

Certainly not those who think like me?

That does not include me?

I will not succumb to good enough,

I will not become “good enough,”

I will not go quietly into the night;

A smoldering match suffocated by two pearly fingers.

I want to be so bright as to be seen through the sun’s oppressive rays,

So bright as to blind those who are not ready to see me,

Percieve me,

I understand that those who do not revere me will fear me,

But i fear four hundred more years of fear.

I fear what will happen if we are continually taught to fear what happens to those of us who refuse to live in fear,

Who are told that we are people who only know fear,

Are only able to be feared.

No, I will not pretend that we are nothing to fear.

Instead that I, armed with history,

Will no longer be enslaved to fear.

Will rebuke fear.

I cannot promise that that is not something to fear.

The grief of the deluded

No one told me how strong you have to be,

To be strong.

To be intentional.

To have purpose, to have a purpose.

Though my life is quite full of direction,

I have no one to share it with, still,

It is so hard for my thoughts to be still,

As I am disappointed, again,

As I am disappointed, again.

And yet, somehow I find myself in the same place

HOW.

Is hope possible for us?

Is forever possible for us?

I just want to be treated well, once,

One time,

There is no fancy words to place this behind,

No needlessly convoluted structures to unpack,

Just one time would I like to hear,

“I love you,”

And have it no be followed,

By the cruel silence of deceit.

The repulsive reflection

The thrill of the chase;

The hunt of proving the caucus wrong.

High off the invigoration of rejection,

I ignored the utter terror of my own reflection.

I’ve turned a blind eye to those who look like me, sound like me, love like me,

I would rather pine after the men who are ashamed to show their parents a guy like me.

How could I reinforce the systems of my own oppression?

Spitting on my fellow inmates behind the white bars?

Hoping to one day seduce one of the institutional guards,

The tears welling in my eyes as they tase my jaded, jagged heart.

Bad taste

In bad taste

But bad taste is in!

You leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Sour,

Dreadful,

Rotten.

Enchanted by purgatory’s bar, I’m addicted to the allure of the misfortunate’s shots.

Growing bitter,

Like the sea of red that erupts from my tongue as it’s cut into by bone white teeth,

Being bitten into silence,

Tart,

Acrid,

Pungent.

Such hubris to wish for sweet flavors to be revealed to me;

To want to have a tooth not wrested from my maw,

But to have it rot tenderly.

To have it be infected by your sweetness, the perfect cavity.

Bouquet

Hopelessness and desperation;

Quite the intoxicating mix.

Cynicism, distrust, even for myself.

I feel like a rose without petals, left only with a thorny stem;

An intense feeling of loneliness,

A sense of abandonment from within.

Everyone tells me to wait,

To leave the thorny garden.

But,

How will I ever pluck the right flower without a few brush cuts?

Without wrists worn from digging?

Without a sweat drenched face?

How?

How can I face myself if guided only by fear?

How can I face myself if only guided by the words of others?

Who plead for me to stop?

How will I ever see the good in others if I do not give others the chance to be good?

Don’t you see!?

At what point am I drunk on naivité?

Am I truly foolish for being hopeful?

I do not think it is wise to place my dilemma to the fault of the garden.

For I am the one doing the plucking; digging up her flowers.

They did not ask to become an object of obsession.

They did not ask to be scrutinized heavily; penalized heavier.

It is my belief that my fear of the garden comes from within.

I do not believe in my ability to truly be a florist, in my right to be a florist.

I am not willing to garner flexibility for others, because I do not extend this grace to myself.

As I bandage my wounds, I contemplate once more;

Is it truly the rose that pierces my skin?

Or do I bear the barb myself? Carving your name in my arm until the bitter red wine

runneth over.

Relapse

It’s not a matter of sadness,

But rather a deep longing, the dread of never belonging.

I feel guilty for thinking about you.

For believing, even for a moment, that time can relapse,

As would I along with it.

White Night

I envy them.

Copper eyes, mine, they flicker green with envy.

My hands, they sting with the crimson rhythmic splatter;

Bleeding from the shards of hopes once had,

They smudge the way forward as I push away the pieces,

Painting my path red, red with fury, red with anger,

With each patter I grow madder;

*Splat* - isolation.

*Splat* - othering.

*Splat* - staring.

Blue and gold does our flag bear.

But it’s retched now- corrupt with the ichor flowing from a man with hell to bear.

In appearance and in ideas there is no space for me here, no place for me here.

I’m not wanted here, they don’t want me here.

I’m not wanted anywhere, they don’t want me anywhere.

Nowhere for me to go, nowhere to run…

I can’t hide, I won’t.

The pain of being seen compromises the joys of being me.

My existence makes me vulnerable, it hurts me,

Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.

Juxtaposing torment; heaven and hell,

The deeper I dive the deeper the knife;

I succumb to the boundless night;

It’s either he dies,

Or I die.

There is no escaping the boundless, white night.

Inundation

I see you in others.

In the mirror, it hurts fresh - fresh hurts it; mirror the in.

They tell me “there’s plenty of fish in the sea,”

But the apple of my eye has drowned,

In the depths of my ocular, mahogany sea, wider than a mile.

Worsening resentment breeds accumulating ire,

Until all that is left? The fire of unrequited desire.

How fitting!

The goddess of pyre,

Burning far too bright!

For you, victim of the deluge, I'd have scorched the seas…

Laurel

Who am I, if not talented?

Diagnosis? Terminal overachievement.

Insatiable, I desire as much as i attain,

I write these words, even now,

Tear stained dreams, crying for more, it’s never enough,

It matters not who I am today, no, no,

But who I will be tomorrow!

For only the fool truly believes tomorrow ever comes,

I win, even when it makes me lose myself;

Who am I, if not talented?

Gifted with bountiful praise,

Glittering accolades,

Why,

Shall i be reduced to medals myself,

To metal, myself?

The trophy, yes, equal parts beautiful, equally cold!

The name on it, it reads like mine, but,

Who am I, if not talented?

This trophy isn’t mine…

My mind, isn’t mine…

Reduced to metals itself.

Reduced to metal, itself

A truth

I've been finding my own words for things as of late.

Becoming too complex to be put into words as of late.

I didn’t have my own meanings for awhile; was not the author of my own texts for awhile,

I found that I was not the progenitor of the life I wanted, for awhile,

And as such the life I was living passed me by for a while.

But I see in new colors now;

I decided that his new favorite color would be blue, and perhaps their favorite color would also be gray.

I decided that those who do not have meaning is he who is drowned by the currents of those who don't understand them.

I decided that the progenitor of his own story will at times feel isolated,

Such that he who is longing for validation from others will abandon the deepest, truest parts of themselves,

And settle into a life that is far too small, far too understandable, far too governed.

I was so afraid of what would become of me when I stepped into the nebulous deluge of will.

My own will.

What will happen if I embrace the magnitude of free will?

But now I know I have nothing to fear;

You all do.

I am not concerned with your comfort, with your understanding, nor your permission.

My missions are too lofty, dreams too loud.

This power may make me lonely,

But I am alone with the person who I'm striving to be.

He is Percy, they are Percy.

Metamorphil

I don't want to be a victim of metamorphosis anymore!

I used to laugh at those who don’t yet have their wings,

While clipping my own- while forgetting how to fly.

If i believe so fervently,

That the essence of the butterfly is my own to claim?

Then why, sweet swallowtail,

Does embracing it bring you such shame?

Only matched in her beauty by her ability to inspire,

The monarch does not question her symmetric might,

No, she simply flutters, for she knows the tantalizing beauty,

That is the sight of her effortless flight.

met·a·mor·pho·sis

noun

a change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.

[Title]

The deception of perfection, a defense mechanism from the earliest of my recollection.

My deep rooted obsession with the spotlight,

Illuminating an incessant fear of the dark.

But I’m not a child anymore,

Perhaps now I can sleep without the nightlight.

The cell

Prisoned in my own brain,

The outside world so far,

So very far,

I’m never really there,

Even when the breeze holds me, and the sun scolds me,

I still feel the bitter cold of my cell, the weight of my ball and chain.

Each step brings with it a screeching scrape,

Drags with it an iron ball of fear,

My vision is never really clear because

Well,

I can’t see the life that’s in front of me!

Don’t you see?

There is danger in my world; it’s infinite here.

The fear of everything chokes me; it’s thick as smog and blinding as fog,

I can’t bear it, I swear it,

On days where everyone is able to see the sun,

Is another day in the penitentiary, where it is only my heart that is able to run.

Nil

You got your wish.

Your sacred, wretched wish that silently escaped your slit, bleeding lips.

Your wish that broke my promise for me, that forced me to watch you vanish before me,

Maybe I deserve it for putting you before me.

For now you live your life as it were before me.

I was an option to you … an obsolete one at that.

An obsolete option that bears no consequence makes me what?

A mistake?

Am I a mistake to you, did I make a mistake in loving you?

How could someone I loved have tarnished my days with such ordain, ornate mud,

My brown skin set ablaze by splatters of my befouled, cobalt blood.

The clots make it hard to see; make it hard to breathe.

I attempt to choke up curses but what erupts in its place is,

Exalting, radiant, deafening,

Silence.

I find myself paralyzed, at times.

Or, rather, find it paralyzing, at times.

I wish my mind could be paralyzed, at times,

Forever frozen in a time where I didn’t hate that I once thought you were mine, where I didn’t hate the disgust that your name begets in my mind,

A time where I didn’t hate you, or, more accurately

Hate what you did.

Because,

Nil

Who

The

Fuck.

Are

You?

How dare you look me in my eyes, the eyes that once locked with yours and promised you that they’re yours, and say that after all they have witnessed that you won’t love them anymore.

To call my eyes less desirable, because they’re brown like my skin, my beautiful reminders that I am struggle incarnate’s kin.

And still, in every thorn you cut me with I discovered the rose, and even through that it was still the rose tinted spectacles you so easily chose…

You told me that one day I would hate you, the impact of that sentence fruitless to keep discreet.

You left me hopeless; left me abandoned, no different than a tattered doll on a rainy street.

And as I write symphonies detailing those days, you sit at your piano slaving away.

You got what you fucking wanted, I’m no longer in your way.

And you don’t give a fuck because, at the end of the day, music is the only thing that sedates you anyway.

I know your secrets because they cut me open, and yet you still turned away.

As the blood streamed from my eyes and onto your arm, I looked up into you in your eyes and told you I loved you.

As I felt my literal humanity stroke down across my cheeks, I told you;

“I love you.”

The hideousness; the ugliness..; my ugliness… it scared you away…

Perhaps that’s why it was so easy,

For you to cover your eyes,

And look away.

------

Is there a word to describe the pit in your stomach; the gag in your throat?

The gag in your throat that makes you choke on mirages and fantasies of future days past?

To know the words I love you will never be uttered I wonder if things would be different if the courage could be mustered,

The courage could be mustered to believe I won’t be alone, that I won’t die,

Alone.

That I wouldn’t cling to you so tightly, to you all, so tightly.

That I could make you shatter your perceptions of your world and, if only for a minute, have your sky and mine collide.

To have people like you in my life that open my sleeping brown eyes, but as I reach out my hand yours is waving goodbye;

Goodbye to a life where our love runs high; where I find myself unable to do anything but cry;

Cry crystal tears; for the person I’ve longed for all these years is finally here,

He’s finally here.

You, you’re finally

Here.

Shame on me for being queer…

For believing I’m worth anything more,

Then friendly toasts with seltzer beers.

The Grave Interspace

I cannot trust that I will be able to trust myself to learn how to be able to trust

You.

It’s not you, trust me, it’s not you,

It’s not me, is it?

No, it’s it.

It’s it that keeps me needing, begging, pleading;

Seeking validation, then pacification, then suffocation,

When i don’t feel the warmth of your embrace, my heart and mind begin to race;

“What if this is another fruitless chase?”

“Why did you choose to join the victorless race?”

Your words from a distance; I wish to hear them!

I do…

It’s the it that keeps me from trusting you;

Trust me when i say i want to learn to trust you,

It’s just i feel so empty mere minutes from you,

The seconds all feel like miles,

Until I’m cities away from your smile.

Verity Fair

Blank slates.

Blank slates with no place;

In history nor today.

Capture, rapture.

Fear, run, cower,

Power.

Hemorrhage; bleed.

Bleed…

We are no more than blank slates; no history of our own.

The past 400 years, our path not to equality,

But one of damage control.

I don’t know what is home, where is home, who,

Is home?

I have no country to claim; my skin links me in with the rest of Africa’s displaced kin.

In our shared plight we all look towards a mutual light;

The history of mother Africa; she glows

Everbright.

Our time, too, stretches out far … far … far.

The hyphen of African-American is, truly, an ellipsis; we make history now.

We made history before.

This flow of African time is real; it is one-

Conjoined.

Kingdoms, cultures, innovations, civilizations, art it’s all real,

It’s all ours,

It’s all,

Mine.

Verity Fair

No longer will we be made inhuman;

Our history erased, forged proof that we’re not human.

Forged proof that we’re entities; entities that may bleed,

Entities that may cry,

Entities that may die,

But still are entities that are not capable of life;

Are able only to survive.

While the real threat; the real entity?

Is bigotry.

Archaic.

Undying.

Alive.

A note

Attain then sabotage;

That’s how this works right?

You call it a curse, scribed by the wicked pen!

But the calligraphy bears a striking resemblance to your own,

The way the o’s cross in “doom…”

Can you be a victim of your own manifested doom?

I suppose, as your foul fate arrives, that the truth will be uncovered soon.

Future reflection

I remember a time where I didn’t think I’d be alive, right now.

If I couldn’t then I can now, right now.

I didn’t think I’d be alive right now.

Right then, my soul could not have made it to right now.

The sun caresses my skin, the skin I wanted to escape.

The skin that he told me he couldn’t love,

The skin I believed I had to hate.

The skin that glows underneath the women's garments,

Reminiscent of the skin once sold at world fair markets.

I don’t know where I am now,

But I know who I am now; all the things I hate I now know to love,

No labels,

No fear.

No labels,

Hatred.

But no fear.

My existence is not to be great, no, my existence is great

Quite, great.

A life once unfulfilled, that boy was me!

Tears streamed down his face; he hated being me.

What good is a life if you don’t want to be alive?

Future reflection

What good is a life if you don’t want to be alive…

What good is a life if you don’t want to be alive!

ALIVE!

I grieve for this boy, he still lives within me.

We fall down together, we make mistakes together.

We fear together, we instill fear together.

We cry together, and we will die together.

I tell him he loves him, to not fear!

Together, we will give the world something to fear.

Radical, powerful, new,

Needed.

He is needed, now.

Right now.

What good is his life if he doesn’t want to be alive?

What good is my life?

If I don’t want to be

Alive!?

The oxymoron of purpose

My eyes glaze over,

Not too dissimilar to how theirs glance over,

Once over,

One up,

then one down.

The paradox of knowing what you want?

That you may never get what you want.

pur·pose·ful

/ˈpərpəsfəl/

adjective

having or showing determination or resolve.

To have purpose; to live life with intent,

To not intend to live life, to choose to live life intentionally it,

Evidently.

Is scary!

Scarier yet?

Being another doll for a man,

Played with; pleading through a mouth stitched shut

“Does it get better yet?”

Too far, too adept

I hate being smart

I really, really

Really hate,

Being smart.

My ego wells up, my throat swells up,

I hate being smart.

Everything I’m not adept in quickly rots;

Rots and decays; I spend days upon days telling myself,

“I never liked that anyways”

My ego wells up, my throat swells up,

I’m talentless, I’m powerless; the only thing that brings me comfort is success,

I’ve learned not to enjoy life,

But to excel in life,

It’s hell, living in this life,

I’m powerless to the emotions that swarm my brain; I’m addicted to success, bound by its chains,

I feel unable to change; I surrender to the pain, to the voice, to Him.

To He who tells me “Being average isn’t okay”, who tells me “Enjoyment comes from strength”,

I wish I had the strength…

To be anything other than amazing is to be like them, to be like them is to be nothing, to be nothing is to be a failure.

My ego wells up, my throat swells up; I must be something in order to be someone,

I’m so wrong, but I’m so right.

Too far, too adept

For once in my life,

I want to be okay with not being right;

With making mistakes, with being subpar;

I can’t try new things,

Without quitting, when success looks too hard.

Without quitting, when success looks too far.

I’m ashamed, when success is too hard,

I’m disheartened, when success looks too far.

Most infuriating of all?

I’m addicted to success, yes.

But now happiness; contentedness, feels

Too far.

Whispers of the gris

I fear for those who don’t wish to be different; for those afraid to be themselves.

I weep for those who don’t know how to be different; are not equipped with courage to be themselves.

When the world treats your difference like a plague, you take up the role they wish for you to play.

The weak, the sick, the meek.

The groomer, the corrupted, the freak.

Your bigotry based in archaic illusions of delusional confusion will not,

Will not ever,

Stop me.

Scare me.

You,

Will not. Scare me.

I would rather die out loud than live in silence,

Would rather create my own world than be shackled to yours.

Your rules disgust me, they beg to be broken.

Plead to be punctured.

I exist in a plane beyond gender,

Beyond boy,

Beyond girl,

Beyond blue,

Beyond pink.

Rosy Boy

The silence brings me comfort,

A sonatine; just for me.

The songs that play azure and fuchsia,

Their sweetness is lost on me.

Signals long since disturbed,

Struggling, straining, striving to be heard,

Radio signals interrupted, frightening lyrics escaping,

Brotherhood, power, strength,

Submissive, polished, frail,

These lyrics must be foreign;

De un idioma que no puedo entender.

The words. They run over me,

Purple waters gnaw at my ankles,

Hissing as I refuse to swim.

All this time I was just the rosy boy.

I wonder now, if I was made as something more?

Literature

noun

lit·er·a·ture

written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit

Pondering

How is it that I feel so incredibly isolated from the campus on which I live, that I feel so disconnected from the faces I pass each day?

That I feel disconnected from the faces that sit with me in classes? How is that?

How is it that the attention I get is typically unwanted, unwarranted? How is it that the only attention I receive is hardened stares, confused stares?

Stares which remind me of my place, that carry the legacy of once not being allowed in this place.

How is it that when I question the divide that separates me from my white peers I am questioned on what I am willing to do about it?

That I am questioned on the degree to which I am to assimilate? To fall in line with the standard?

To play nicely with those who do not wish to play with me?

Is the question not instead why do we feel so alone – why do I feel so alone? Why do I feel uninvited on the campus of the university that I pay to attend?

Pondering

Is the question not why my college experience has rotted to résumé-building?

Is it not why I have resorted to opportunism, resorted to drowning my loneliness in words, in work?

Is the question not how am I to feel comfortable in an environment where I am but one of only one thousand?

One of 40 in my major?

Is the question not how it is possible that I am one of less than 2,000 students that look like me?

Is the question not where are the rest of us?

Is the question not why are we not here, not what is keeping us from being here?

How am I to navigate the remainder of my stint here being treated like a remainder?

With the cruel ones reminding me that I am a statistic, an anomaly?

A factor of a quota?

Pondering

That my success is an exception – unexpected rather than impressive?

The only way to get these questions answered is to ask them. Loudly.

To question the inherency of the world around me, the inherency of the divide that paints the world a sinister shade of pearl.

Education is empowerment, and empowerment is advocacy.

The answers come only to those who ask. Loudly.

Is the question not why are you still silent?

Must aloneness truly mean loneliness?

A quiet Saturday night, the light of my laptop abrasively pierces my eyes. With the company of my words, I am content. I have no plans for the evening, and even fewer for the next. For many, this is outlandish; and yet I am content.

What would do one good is to learn that the state of being alone does not have to morph into the state of being lonely. Even in the stillness of solitude, I do not feel the bone-chill of isolation. I am at one with myself. Supplying myself with love so powerful that my own company quickly grows into enough.

What I mean to say is that perhaps the love, the attention we so desperately desire from others already resides in each and every one of us.

And that the absence of this love cannot be supplemented from even the most loving partner.

There are some days that I do not believe this. That I forget who I am. That I am not able to accept the stillness. The silence and the emptiness; its vastness suffocates me. But is it really the responsibility of another person to fill the chasm of remoteness for me? Would they even be able to?

In my short time on Earth, it has grown painfully apparent that it is possible to feel alone even with the love of others washing over you, to feel freezing even as sunlight caresses your skin. You cannot receive what you feel you do not deserve, and you cannot give yourself what you feel you cannot receive. Perhaps the lonely one is not the loveless one, but instead the one who does know how to perceive love; how to receive love.

In the pursuit of retrieving what we have chosen to relinquish from ourselves, we become even more disconnected from what it is that we need. Become blinded by the rosiness of infatuation, so much so that we abandon ourselves further, further, and further still, settle into serenity with the intolerable. It is in these moments that we must choose to stop running. To stop; to ask ourselves, “what do I want?” To ask ourselves “what do I need?” And to have the strength to provide it for ourselves.

So then, how much is the pursuit of love truly about the love one has for themselves? Tempting as it may be to surrender your ability to love to the hands of another, the true peril is not in the inability to be given love. No, it is in minding the world without having any love for yourself. Only then may you learn true grief; may you experience true loneliness.

We cannot always choose to not be alone. But is it not in our power to choose not to be lonely?

Must aloneness truly mean loneliness?

What I mean to say is that perhaps the love, the attention we so desperately desire from others already resides in each and every one of us.

And that the absence of this love cannot be supplemented from even the most loving partner.

We cannot always choose to not be alone. But is it not in our power to choose not to be lonely?

Lessons

Actions are manifested in the choice of no longer doing something -

Allure of the stillness

I used to struggle terribly when offered a choice.

There is a cataclysmic fear in being offered options. For me, anyway. At twenty years old, I still find it uncomfortable to be fully in charge of my life. It scares me. I spend most of my time worrying about what I cannot see; worrying that at all possible moments, in all possible contexts, that I am making a mistake.

In this fear there is no time for idling. My freedom exists only as far as the cage which I inhabit allows; my head has scraped the ceiling for quite some time now.

This is quite taxing for me, obviously. Though I am excellent, I am often tired. Overworked. My insatiable obsession with my future is my biggest strength and my most fatal flaw.

The paradoxical nature of this boon comes to fruition when I am forced into the driver’s seat. When I can no longer gaze out of my windows, my eyes glazed with anxiety. If given the opportunity to reduce worry, I will actively not take it.

The only thing worse than a future that I cannot see?

Ruining a future that I can.

While I do not know much, I know now that this lifestyle is not sustainable. Not realistic. Not healthy. I know that this lifestyle deprives me of the growth that I so desperately seek; like how the tulip yearns dearly for our star.

‘How do I know which decision is correct?’ reverberates infinitely from one ear to the other. Different voices, different pitches, different cadences. In mere seconds it is reduced to excruciating noise.

In this paralysis I continued to make the only wrong decision: stagnation.

My life began to pass me by; experiences began to escape my grasp. Yet, I could not move. Why is it so terrifying to move? Why can’t I move? I want to move!

Writhe as I may, even my digits have grown too heavy to lift.

Lessons

Actions are manifested in the choice of no longer doing something -

Allure of the stillness

As tears began to well into my eyes, I could feel them erasing the glaze which had once blinded them like a layer of plaque. The droplets carried with them the antidote to my mind-ridden state of being.

Each tear itself became their own realization.

This was my first choice; to never be reduced to immobility again.

I stand up to the noise, now; select a direction, and set forth.

I still hear the allure of the stillness, sometimes. But it has gotten quieter.

A new voice, still nameless, has begun to take its place. It's softer, familiar, assured.

Yes, I believe I will name it mine.

Lessons

That what you miss is not necessarily yours -

Please stay a memory

I still hear your voice– each time I close my eyes, I still hear your voice. With uncanny clarity, each time I close my eyes, I still hear your voice.

It does not crack, it does not waver.

It is your voice rid of imperfections, it is only what I wish to hear.

Yet, when I open my eyes, you vanish. You disappear. You leave not a trace of your subspace visit. I call your name, but you do not answer.

Can you even hear me..?

…

I decide to try living, instead. Living without you, instead. I tell my friends that loss comes with ease for me.

I tell my friends that loss does not phase me. That in this new phase of loneliness yes, I am not truly alone; that which I gift myself with washes the pain of the solitude away, like water does a stain.

When I close my eyes, it becomes a lie.

With uncanny clarity, each time I close my eyes, I still hear your voice.

I know that I cannot have you.

I know that I do not want you.

I know that shall I regress, the agony of old and the ensnarement yet to come will coalesce, binding me still.

I know that shall I devolve further; shall I devote myself to you once more, that a new dimension of suffering will throw open its doors.

Lessons

That what you miss is not necessarily yours -

Please stay a memory

As I slip away into its grasp you call out my name.

“Percy!”

It sounds discordant, unsightly…

It cracks, it shrieks, it breaks,

Who are you!?

You shout until your throat rips– larynx raw from fatigue.

As the voice twists into a manifestation of lament itself, I descend further into the void.

Somehow, you do not get quieter.

“Percy!”

It’s ugly, it’s necrotic, it’s infinite.

Who are you!?

…

Perhaps, then, it’s best if you stay a memory.

At least for today.

Lessons

I have the capacity to hurt others … does that make me a monster?

Blood studded predator. [Content Warning: Recurring mentions of blood/potentially disturbing material.]

“I didn’t know … I’m sorry!”

You’re bleeding, profusely. Through stifled sobs you release sounds of terror, grief. Of pain.

The tears and the blood conjoin, forming a forsaken puddle on the floor.

You still find it in you, through being stroked by death, to have your eyes locked with mine. They do not look sad nor do they not look pained.

Harrowing.

They haunt me, still.

I drop the knife, your name still freshly etched.

It splashes into the remnants of your humanity. Its shimmering silver catches the light and reflects my face.

There I am; deranged, blood speckled.

Yet, I do not look guilty. Though my vessel has broken the most cardinal rule, my mind is unwavering, unmoving, unflinching.

Steadfast.

That is what scares me most.

Through flooded lungs, you muster up all that remains of your lifeforce; able to cough out but one word:

“Why?”

I’m paralyzed in a moment in time.

“I didn’t mean to!”

I didn’t want to hurt him, I didn’t!

How can I sculpt out the perfect love, without some operations gone awry? This is for the greater good of me! Doesn’t he get that!?

Lessons

I have the capacity to hurt others … does that make me a monster?

Blood studded predator. [Content Warning: Recurring mentions of blood/potentially disturbing material.]

He’s no longer of use to me, but still I cannot bear to end his misery.

I cannot bear witness any longer to the shattered excuse of a man that lay before me, desperate to see even a second of tomorrow.

“I didn’t mean to!”

Am I speaking, or only staring?

His neck relaxes as his human will escape in a final gasp.

Though they are lifeless, your eyes continue to pierce, deeper, and deeper.

Making your injuries comparable to a scrape.

“I DIDN’T MEAN TO!”

I am flooded with the primal urge; unbounded voice begging me to run.

Yet, I am not moving.

Guilt, terror, grief; I am overcome in an instant by emotions.

“What did I do!?”

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

I fall to my knees; atoning to the deity which has long since abandoned me.

“I DID NOT MEAN TO!”

Lessons

I have the capacity to hurt others … does that make me a monster?

Blood studded predator. [Content Warning: Recurring mentions of blood/potentially disturbing material.]

He’s no longer of use to me, but still I cannot bear to end his misery.

I cannot bear witness any longer to the shattered excuse of a man that lay before me, desperate to see even a second of tomorrow.

“I didn’t mean to!”

Am I speaking, or only staring?

His neck relaxes as his human will escape in a final gasp.

Though they are lifeless, your eyes continue to pierce, deeper, and deeper.

Making your injuries comparable to a scrape.

“I DIDN’T MEAN TO!”

I am flooded with the primal urge; unbounded voice begging me to run.

Yet, I am not moving.

Guilt, terror, grief; I am overcome in an instant by emotions.

“What did I do!?”

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

I fall to my knees; atoning to the deity which has long since abandoned me.

“I DID NOT MEAN TO!”

Gratitude

noun

grat·i·tude

the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

A Reminder

Thank you for reading. Really.

As difficult as life may be, being a victim of it is not an option. The only way through which I find solace at times, is by releasing the non-communicable through art. Through writing.

The pieces featured in this book have come from many places, many times, and many feelings.

The pieces featured in this book are stills; unedited snapshots of the struggle of the human condition. The struggles that come from my condition.

I find it to be quite frustrating when the stories of my people are told only through the post-mortem tellings of our lost ones. We have a connotation of tragedy, of weakness, of vulnerability that follows us like a ghost. We are feared by others; we are scared of others.

It is my dearest wish that our own voices and our own stories be included in our dialogues. We cannot be spoken for, nor should we tolerate being spoken over. We are not products of the past, nor are we figments of the future. We live among you. Spark joy among you. Pass on among you.

This is not a feasible life mission. Believe as I may, I deep down know that I alone cannot change the world. I know that I cannot purge the world of its evil, leaving behind lavender oceans in which everyone is free to wade.

I also know, however, that burying my gifts for fear of persecution is equally impossible.

Even if my words touch the mind of only one person, my divine duty will have been done. Using my voice is my act of rebellion. Hearing it is yours.

All I ask of you is to question the inheritance of that which surrounds you. I urge you to question the legacy of oppression that binds its loyal followers and its exploited victims.

Please, be brave enough to write your own truth.

Be braver still to live it, too.