24 August 2007

i prefer the word healthy to normal

i want to be healthy

it’s subtly erroneous,
this idea you have:
the hope that things will just work out on their own
there must be some difference between
acceptance and complacency

like the subtle difference between addiction and commitment
like the difference between drinking water and soda
the difference that i hope is between you and i
what is that?
who can say what is needful?
is excess always excessive?
and is the unessential always bad?

i see the way the food you bought rots in the fridge as you eat out
and the way you sit on the bed rotting
paying at least forty dollars to color your hair every six weeks
but, then, sometimes I color my hair too.
i see the way the car that doesn’t run simply rusts in your driveway
and it sits for so long—it’s veritably invisible

and none of it makes sense

I want so badly to be different but
i am afraid
that I will never be different
that my humanness will be of essential significance
that my whole conception of truth is as slightly erroneous as your conception of faith
it seems negligible, but there is a great shift in attitude
and i cannot see my fruit

i am afraid
that in my soul
there is a canker
a dissonance, that
i am perpetually convinced that the reason no one stays is because i have never earned permanence
that i am both wrong and right
that i am worthless and divine

i am afraid
that my pursuits of good are a fake
and i realize too late that i was wrong, that i was never going anywhere

that no matter how badly I want to rise above,
that I will always have this connection to you
that i will become you
and that I can never, ever be different
even though i love you, i will never want to become you

i’m afraid
i will be like the man who feels so trapped that he drinks his way to an early death
even though I’ve never drunk
i am afraid
that i will never deserve more,
that i will someday have a husband who forgets himself among everyone else and destroys his family
and then i’m trapped, like I see you are, strong enough only to survive, but not strong enough to change

i am afraid
that fear never really goes away
but life is about dealing with the fear
decreasing the dissonance
choosing an intent
means rather than an end

the fear is the unknown
faith is not the absence of the unknown
but active pursuit of hope in something better