Because I carry it well

Because I Carry It Well

There is a weight I wear like skin,
so practiced no one sees it strain,
an architecture of discipline
built to disguise the rain.
I speak a fluent, silent tongue,
denial dressed as poise,
each measured breath, each word half-sung,
to mute the inner noise.
I’ve learned to hold my face like glass,
composed, unmoved, serene,
so no one watching as I pass
suspects what lies between.
For falling apart was not a door
I ever dared unlatch,
I built my house on a silent floor
and learned to hide the scratch.
Beneath the ribs, in unlit rooms,
the wounded hold their fort,
a sanctum sealed against the glooms
no gentle word can thwart.
Why won’t we speak the truths we bear?
Because language cannot hold
the shape of loss, the shape of care
we’ve never learned to fold.
We fear the eyes too quick to stare,
the hearts too slow to listen,
we fear the weight we’d make them bear,
a burden none would christen.
So many walk in common clothes
with ordinary faces,
yet carry graves that no one knows,
in unremembered places.
They rise, they work, they laugh on time,
they nod, they pass, they cope,
and no one hears the buried rhyme
of sorrow dressed as hope.
We are the torn, the split, the two —
the one who longs, the one who hides,
we ache to let the truth break through
yet swallow it like tides.
So we stay sealed, polite, composed,
our sorrow kept unspoken,
because to show what lies exposed
feels like confessing broken.
“It doesn’t hurt,” we say, and smile,
while everything within has drowned,
this is the softest, saddest lie —

the loudest grief that makes no sound.

…

DCG

Because I carry it well doesn’t mean it’s not heavy. I’ve simply become fluent in the language of pretending nothing hurts when everything does. I make it look effortless because falling apart was never an option. Because I carry it well.”

Limerence

June 30, 26 ~ DC ~ Leave a comment

I write to you from inside the storm,
and from the doorway where I watch it form.
I have loved you mostly inside my head,
a theater of scenes that never get said.
You appear, then vanish, a flickering sign,
and my heart runs after what is never quite mine.
I call this love, but it burns like a fever,
a vow to a ghost and a distant believer.
I rewind small moments until they all blur,
a glance, a breath, the way you never were.
You stay perfected, framed in my mind,
and I fade smaller just to keep you kind.
I have abandoned myself chasing your name,
walking over glass while calling it flame.
Each silence from you becomes a loud judge,
each crumb of regard, a banquet I won’t budge.
Your armor is heavy, your doors stay closed tight,
yet I camp at the gate, praying you’ll turn toward the light.
You retreat into distance, I rush into fire,
thinking if I burn enough, you’ll feel desire.
I have studied our pattern like scripture and code,
watched it etch scars in my nervous road.
You step back whenever I try to draw near,
and I step in closer every time you disappear.
The gap between us is more than just space,
it’s all of my effort poured into your grace.
Now a new voice trembles under my skin,
asking why I keep losing myself to not win.
It tells me love is not meant as a chase,
not an endless exam I must constantly ace.
It whispers my worth is older than you,
that my pulse didn’t start when you came into view.
So I gather my pieces from altars and floors,
and start closing shrines with your name on their doors.
I turn these letters inward for the first time,
writing truth to the self I left out in the grime.
I step back, not to wound or accuse,
but to finally stop making myself the one I lose.
I still ache, I still want, I still remember your face,
yet the fantasy no longer gets to set the pace.
I walk away on unsteady, unfamiliar legs,
carrying both my longing and unanswered begs.
Somewhere beyond this unfinished, jagged bend,
something real may rise—if I dare not write the end.

RSP

…

DCG

Still looking

June 18, 26 ~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Still Looking

A poem for the people who have studied themselves and are still a little lost

I have been taking myself apart for years

and still I can’t explain the wreck

I know the diagrams, I’ve read the books

and still something’s caught in the neck

I’ve sat with therapists in quiet rooms

and walked out with the same old ache

the mirror offers nothing I don’t know

and still I can’t sleep when I wake

I know exactly how I pull away

I know the name of every wall

I built the taxonomy, laid it out flat

and then I went and did it all

There was a child who learned that love was leaving

who waited by a window every night

and when love finally stayed I found a reason

to stand up and turn off the light

The damage doesn’t stop when you discover it

it doesn’t care what you have named

it bleeds right through the bandage of your learning

and someone new gets stained

I’ve handed people maps of all my damage

said here’s the wound, here’s where it leads

and then I watched myself go right along

and plant the same old seeds

But something in the writing keeps me grounded

it pulls me back to what is real

not fixed, not freed, just willing to return

and say again what I still feel

There is a dignity in looking twice

in going back when nothing’s changed

the work is not the cure, the work is witness

a record of the strange

Fragility is not the proof of failure

the crack is where the light comes through

the fool who names his folly has more standing

than the one who never knew

I am not a villain for the wounds I carry

but I’m the one who gets to choose

I know the punchline now — it’s still worth laughing

at what I couldn’t bear to lose

About This Poem

I’ve been writing about myself for over fourteen years — the patterns, the contradictions, the gap between what I understand and what I actually do — and I still don’t have a tidy answer. That used to embarrass me. It doesn’t anymore, quite. What I’ve come to believe is that the examined life isn’t a problem to be solved; it’s a practice to be kept. This poem is about the specific frustration of knowing yourself well and still finding yourself at the same old crossroads — and why I think that frustration, named honestly, is worth more than a false arrival. If you’ve ever read something about attachment or self-sabotage and thought yes, that’s exactly it and then watched yourself do the thing anyway, you already know what this poem is about. My blog and Substack, going on fourteen years now, are built for the people who are still in that gap — not defeated by it, just honest about it.

Who This Is For

For the people who feel things deeply but can’t always find the words — and for whom someone else’s words, when they land right, feel like being heard for the first time. For the people sitting in the middle distance between belief and doubt, between knowing and doing, between who they were and who they’re trying to become. For anyone who has ever understood their own damage completely and still had to live through it anyway. That’s who I write for. That’s you.

…

DCG

“Happiness only real when shared“

June 14, 26June 15, 26 ~ DC ~ Leave a comment

“Happiness only real when shared” — Christopher McCandless Bus 142

We talk ourselves into a corner

When all we are trying to do

Is to escape the fear we project

Onto the only world we knew

You would rather trade connection

Remain alone in an empty room

The fear of abandonment, vulnerability, and intimacy

You avoid the scars on the face in the mirror, an undiscovered gloom

The loneliness you feel

A self imposed trap

You never see the dream for what it is

For you, it’s only just a nap

The irony of the nightmare

It is not just a dream

The way you’ve lived your life

Won’t help you if you never come clean

You built a shield no one can see

A quiet, practiced vacancy

You call it peace, this careful space

But grief still lingers in its place

You learned to need a little less

To dodge the weight of tenderness

Each time a hand reached out to stay

You trained your heart to turn away

Not out of hate, not out of pride

But something deep inside

A child who learned that love could leave

Now fears what they still dare believe

John Bowlby saw what we deny

The hidden truths we bury deeply inside

Attachment bends beneath the strain

Of silent loss and unnamed pain

You move through life composed, contained

Yet feel so subtly unclaimed

And though you long to just belong

You’ve taught yourself that that is wrong

But walls don’t heal what they protect

They only help us disconnect

And in the end, what hurts the most

Is needing love, but fearing it close

RSP

…

DCG

Amathia –the illusion of wisdom

May 14, 26 ~ DC ~ Leave a comment

Some will defend

Some will condemn

The Socratic idea of amathia

The illusion of wisdom

The intellect becomes a weapon of self deception

Reason becomes distorted by ego and Will where truth is not the goal and becomes willful ignorance

Some will defend with flame and light,
Others condemn, steeped in night.
The Socratic shadow casts its claim,
Amathia’s veil, a whispered name.
An illusion spun in wisdom’s dress,
Where knowing masks our deep duress.
The intellect, sharp-edged and keen,
A weapon forged, yet sight unseen.
Self-deception drapes the mind’s hall,
Reason falters, begins to crawl.
Ego’s throne mocks humble sight,
Will distorts the stolen light.
Truth recedes, a fading shore,
Not the quest, but something more.
We chase the thought as hunters do,
Blind to what’s glaring true.
In halls of logic, cold and vast,
The heart’s soft echo fades too fast.
Amathia, the ignorance crowned,
In wisdom’s court, a silent sound.
The mind’s own maze, a twisted path,
Where reason grapples aftermath.
We build our towers from fragile clay,
Dreams of knowing slip away.
Fractured souls in tangled threads,
Where certainty with doubt now wed.
The human mind, a fragile cage,
A paradox in endless page.
We yearn to see, yet fear the show,
What we don’t know, we claim as woe.
Insight’s flame both lights and blinds,
Echoing through ancient minds.
Complex webs of thought and pain,
Where wisdom wars within the brain.
No final truth, just endless spin,
A dance of shadow deep within.
Observe the frailty, the great unknown,
In every mind a seed is sown.
The journey not to win or lose,
But to embrace what we can’t choose.
For in the riddle, we find our place,
The beauty of this human race.
A mind that stumbles toward the light,
Embracing both the dark and bright.
Forever caught in reason’s gleam,
And Socrates’ eternal dream.

…

DCG

Disconnected: Tales and Talisman

July 29, 15July 29, 15 ~ DC ~ Leave a comment

There are times when we begin to have self-doubt about much of what we have tried to carry out in the world. When reflecting upon our lives and wondering if we have made a difference in the world, we sometimes neglect that which makes our spirits lighter. We often become detached from a healthy lifestyle by allowing routines and small matters consume our lives. When one reaches this place, we begin to reflect upon that which will take us to another state of being, a place that is usually provoked by something we love, something that will transform our thinking and bring about happiness…..For me that element is…playing some music.

Unfortunately we can often become distracted, and become over time practice behaviors that become habits that will lead us down a darker road than the one we should have liked to walk. Sometimes the habits of our thinking can distort the nature of ‘things-as-they-are’, and we become disconnected to fundamental healthy living choices. There are many tales and talisman of those who become “disconnected”. If our focus is too narrow, or too broad, we just may be leaving much of our experience to the realm that erodes these experiences. We then little by little become stricken with a decay in our thought on how we should relate and live in the world. Thus we begin a process of alienation that started with an imbalance somewhere in our own habitual routines which ultimately pull us away from what is truly important in our lives.

“If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” – Albert Einstein

Take a look at the cases for addiction. One can become addicted to any number of things based on our “perception of being!” We are profoundly affected by the environments we accommodate. I posit this claim on the history of psychological studies in the fields of human motivation, developmental psychology, behaviorist conditioning, cognitive and gestalt findings, from Jean Piaget, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, (et. al.), and the Eastern influences of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucian teachings. This is also noted in studies of the Enneagram with conclusive findings supporting my following claim.

Addiction is not caused only by the drugs themselves. Addiction is caused by a sense of isolation and disconnection in the addict. It’s not the drugs—it’s your cage.

Causes of Addiction – A Revealing Truth

So our placement in the world, our views about the world can somewhat determine our “Being” in the world. Our decisions about how we live, are ultimately important when finding meaning in our relationships.

When we become disconnected from

Nature
Social events
Values not based on ego / self
Music
Harmony
Humor and Laughter
Family

we may be heading towards hurtful discord and disharmony.

Being Disconnected is an anti-Taoist state of being

The quintessential question we often displace is about being! How does one fit into the world? We can become distracted, overstimulated by our passions, but there may be some consequences to our choices that we make about our relationship to the world and in the world. We must first understand what in this world is critical for our “Being!” How should we relate to it, the people in it, and what sources should we align ourselves to?

Through the process of immersion one can reconnect to the world. If we follow paths that lead us down a meandering road full of distraction, such as problematic learned behaviors, maladaptive dissonant behaviors, or faulty poor environments which damage our awareness and dissuade our better natures; then we may find ourselves in an existential bewilderment.

One must use all of our senses and abilities to “Feel” this immersion. It is not purely intellectual. It is also emotive and felt from the “Heart”! I cannot stress the importance of this connection since much of our “detachments” derive from within the mind, but are not solved without the heart being involved. A disconnection can be largely caused by our will’s overpower other parts of our sensing apparatuses. Thus we become lost, yet still don’t know why we have disconnected our way from the things that sustain our being the most: family, friends, hobbies, music, et cetera. We give into our ego, and distort our other relationships that alienate our Being. Alternately we can become lost in our passions, and leave our intellectual judgements at home on the porch. Like the saying ….”If you don’t wanna run with the big dogs, than stay on the porch!” An anachronism that seems to fit in this case.

There are many instances in which one can alienate themselves from that which sustains them. Sometimes it is from powers outside of their control, yet they have to deal with the aftermath of burdens of such events such as parental alienation. How we cope with the events in our lives is our decision. We are responsible for seeking out solutions that will bring about our salvation. Part of the process of healing, is directing ourselves to open our hearts again to receive the natural positive vibrations the universe has to offer us. When we close ourselves to this, we risk the chance of becoming overloaded and thus become jaded!

So what’s your Muse? What will bring you home again if indeed you stray from source of your fulfillment and well-being?

“Here is the vicious circle: if you feel separate from your organic life, you feel driven to survive; survival -going on living- thus becomes a duty and also a drag because you are not fully with it; because it does not quite come up to expectations, you continue to hope that it will, to crave for more time, to feel driven all the more to go on.”
― Alan W. Watts

“To forget the whole world is easy; to make the whole world forget you is hard.”
― Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu

“Who acts in stillness finds stillness in his life.”
― Lao Tzu & A J Girling – translator

“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”
― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all beings in the world.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching