Sigh…I actually just said that out loud…it’s Monday morning and I’m starting to feel better from a flu-like monstrosity that invaded me on Saturday morning and raged inside all day Sunday. I also just ended seeing a woman whom I really liked. The physical assault on my body by the viral assassins (of unknown origin) will fade relatively quickly while the mental echo’s of the woman I just broke up with will remain for quite a while.

I liked her very much. I could say VERY much…as her thoughts and ideas about life, art, living, etc. resonated with me at a molecular level…or so it felt…and we spent hours with each other at dinner, at bars and clubs…via text and on the phone (which, by the way, I detest…not talking to her, talking to anyone on the phone). I thought that there was something special there, something long sought and very rarely found; a connection.

I was right and wrong.

Everything was amazing when we were out and about in public places, on the phone even as much as it makes me uncomfortable, and definitely via text. It wasn’t until we were finally in private, when she came over for dinner, that I realized how divergent some of our most basic ideals were. It’s a long involved conversation but the specific and salient details were mostly centered around sex and emotions and the emotional investigation surrounding actions and reactions. While we were in agreement on the rough outlines of happiness, we were most decidedly not on the same page down in the details.

She told me that she had been hurt deeply in her marriage (long since passed) by his cheating and lying about affairs. This had a devastating effect on her self-image (both emotionally and physically) and kept her at arm’s length from others for a long time. Then, when she was back out in the mix, she almost replayed, frame by frame, the same scenario and outcome with someone she was dating.

I get that this had a lasting and deep effect…and likely something that will be dealt with for a long time. It made her views on sex almost inextricable from her views on love and emotion. She was highly suspect about men’s motivations and convinced herself that every man saw her in one way only; a sexual conquest and object to be used and rejected once done with. I totally understand that and I feel deeply for her, in all kinds of ways, but I also deeply understand that she is not someone I can be with.

And I feel just awful about it.

My own story, as messing and as complicated as hers, had to do with being in a loveless marriage at the end where sex was not even discussed let alone occurred. It has to do with understanding my internal requirements and seeing that love and sex were entirely different things. I was about sex being used as a behavior modifier and bribe in order to affect change. It was about sex becoming a detraction in a relationship…not the utterly amazing and intimate revelation that it can be.

I will never be in that situation again.

My views on sex, now, are so totally different than what they were when I was married because then I did not know I had a choice…that I could change how I saw sex; how I felt about it and how it affected me. The person I am now has set sex free from any regulated or accepted construction created by society in the sense that it is as important as touch, as smell and as sight, more so because it combines all of them.

But…sex is not love.

It is a component of love but it is not love and I simply refuse to become captive to that circuitous scenario of relying on one to prove the other. The idea that sex and love are mutual inclusive meaning that I must convince myself, like she has done and as society has helped her, that one cannot (or should not) exist without the other. I cannot (and will not) allow myself to fall in love without investigating and as deeply (as possible) understand the sexual component of a relationship because I have not done so in the past and it has never worked out. Once I’m in love, it becomes a very tough choice to leave a relationship if I find that I and she are not, after all, sexually compatible. It’s an internal argument I simply don’t want to have, as cowardly as that may sound.

I simply choose to not put myself in that position.

And I feel bad that I can’t be in a relationship with her because she cannot stop her internal battles from raging, she cannot divorce herself from emotions indelibly dyed by the hurt of traitorous deception. She cannot stop being herself…regardless that the “herself” at that moment would be quite different than the “herself” of the future.

My life is now, not the future…and I cannot ever go back to being a person that accepts the promise of future riches for the pain and sorrow of now.

How much of our lives
is about finding
versus
missing something lost?
I don’t know,
I do know
that sometimes
what
I’ve lost
I never knew I had
until gone
until
a hole appeared
out of
nowhere…with
me looking down
wondering
um?
what?
and that is what
I found
today
when I woke up
even though I didn’t
know you
before;
never knew
a missing anything
…at all
I looked down
inside
and there was
nothing
where
I think
you are
supposed to be

Some while ago someone asked me (as far as dating) what I am looking for.  I’m not sure she was prepared for my answer:

The question is “what am I looking for” and the answer, well, the answer isn’t so easy.  I search for the impossible, knowing full well that not only doesn’t it exist, it never has and never will.

As a species we inundate ourselves through media and advertisements, magazines (and on and on) with visions and descriptions of people who are figments, mere diaphanous two dimensional pictures, made up and projected at us 24/7/365.  These images are made to be perfect because no one is (perfect) and it’s that difference—that deep and wide gulf—that sells cars, beer, soap, makeup, clothes…and on and on and on.

We want, we need, we HAVE TO HAVE perfection!

Because we’re told so, over and over again, in so many ways and though so many different vehicles that we don’t match, we don’t add up…we’re not good enough to be loved as we are.  But that new car…that bottle of beer…that new pair of shoes…that different whatever…will be the last straw, the last tiny bit needed to cross that chasm towards perfection.

And then we will have it all.

But we all know it’s lies and fantasy, bullshit from bullshitters, and we look the other way because looking at the truth is painful and annoying.  It doesn’t initially feel good.  There is no instant gratification.  And it certainly does not sell cars, beer, clothes or makeup.

I’m looking for imperfect perfection, ironic seriousness and a beauty that is both unique and ubiquitous.  I am looking for a person that loves and accepts herself and by doing so unleashes a beauty unmatched; unique, natural and sustainable.  There is no recipe for what that is but I will know when it is there in front of me because I am awake and looking for it.

As I said…the answer is not so easy.

Today;
I heard of a friend
really a friend of a friend
her sister
actually
is dying but not
like us dying; everyday
dying…
for real dying,
hospice
dying
and I also heard
of a lot of stupid shit
on
social media
TV news
digital only
friends, the goddamn
president of
the united states
and I know deeply
we can’t live
perpetually saddened
wall to wall
aggrieved
but I want to live with
ideas of humanity, of sanity
towards lives
people
and believe that I
make a
difference…I know
I don’t really, much
at least
but believing in love
is enough
sometimes…no
fuck that
…always;
because without that
we are
just
the news.

I see her eyes from the
corners of
mine, see the edge
her smile, her
heart beating
there
watching I hope
that an edge of me is
seen felt heard
and I
am happy
while the streetlights
jerkily move
in rearview mirrors
the cars
around us running
like horses; a
herd of movement
and my left hand on her
right leg, warmth bleeding
upward
a laugh, a smile
a stoplight, a new song
playing…I see
her eyes
without looking but
feeling through
the warm skin of my palm
as we head
downtown but
anywhere we go
is
perfect.

She tells me
with
her lips, her eyes, she
tells me…without
telling me
I beg to listen, to
watch
her words
become the sense
I feel
on my skin
on my skin
she
tells me…and
I beg
to
listen knowing
that without
telling me
I will
know

It persists; this
wound this ache, this
sense of weight gravity pulling
me toward the center…
this black hole of
dense hatred consuming
everything

and I misunderstand
thinking it is me
it is not

I look inward
seeing what I don’t understand
a dark thing throbbing
slowly expanding
blackness with no light, a
rotating funnel
where sympathy falls

and I misunderstand
thinking it is me
it is not

it’s a new thing placed…by
fear or pain or disgrace or
shame…looking
far too much alike
too much me
too much what I imagine feel see
think; in mirrors

and I misunderstand
thinking it is me
it is not

the wound is temporary; like
life is fleeting
like pain is perception
knowing it is not me, it is
transition
movement toward, away
forgotten now

and I misunderstand
thinking it is me
it is not

the deep hole will occasionally
return
the dark funnel
a rotating descent
but now I understand
thinking it is me
it is not

Society; the media, the very institutions that we were educated by as well as our parents and friends who were indoctrinated by those same forces all tell us, preach to us—command us—to look to external authorities to validate who we are and how we feel about ourselves. Girls must be Barbie thin with big tits who give away in the bedroom what they are denounced for in public…boys must be virile, tall, muscular and aggressively successful and NEVER show emotion.

And both genders have to be handsome and beautiful for every second of every day regardless of the emotional hurricanes raging inside.

Society not only commands us but actually DEPENDS upon us to look to them for defining ourselves because without that intimate dependence, without that hungering need, what the fuck kind of good examples does society actually provide for us?

War is good?
Success is the only result allowed?
Conceit is preferred?
Anger works?
Hate is just a different perspective?

No…no one has to tell you what you’ve known since you were born—regardless that you actually believe this—and that is that the ONLY person, place or thing on this entire mother fucking planet that you are required to look to for validation…

…is you.

That you have all the tools necessary to live a happy and fulfilling life…not the life advertised, promoted, and defined by people you not only don’t know, but whom you’d probably dislike upon meeting. Not the life of;

reality TV,
car and beer commercials,
a corporate corner office,
sports “hero”

You deserve a life that you wake up to smiling and happy to live everyday even when there are rough patches or you may fear or think that it’s too difficult. And you love that life because you love and accept the creator of that life. You only need to look as far as the mirror to ask for approval and seek validation to live…

…a life defined by you and you only.

But sure, it’s a complete shit show getting there—getting to where you love and accept yourself—with many setbacks and attempts, with society fighting you every step of the way because it’s addicted to you, to your blind fealty and unquestioning adoration. Yep, it will probably be the hardest thing you’ve ever done—shaking off those chains—and will likely take a while to get to where you can look at society with a concentrated critical eye and basically say;

“Um, can you get the fuck out of the way, you’re blocking my view of happiness.”

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen

You are the tree, the mountain, the
night sky with an infinity
of stars
giving the faintest
shadow to your
dreams
and there are words

There are words spoken
meant to hurt, to
divide your internal forces
to grind, to
remove small parts
of you
at a time

You are the obsidian, the sand, the
shards of earth left-over
from creation, from
the insides of stars
immoveable, unstoppable
great deep gravity
wells

They are words created by men, women
simple sounds strung
together…standard across
languages
across time, they are
poised, meant
to hurt

You are the effortless ocean
washing the land clean
forever moving,
being, a harmonic
of yourself
you will be here there
with the stars

They are words, jumbled compact
echoes between our
own fears…about
us, them, love, hate
and we are always thinking
they have edges,
knives for stabbing

You are untouchable by frequency, by
the shake of fist
how would a mountain
reply
if it even heard
the faint
curse of man?

A friend of mine recently got a tattoo of a flying taco (it had eagle wings) with the head of a unicorn and ass-end of a cat and there was a rainbow coming out of the cat’s ass. I told him before he got it that it was a stupid idea. In fact all of us (his peeps) told him he was just bat shit crazy to get the tattoo. Seriously, it was right across his entire chest.

Yeah, completely bat shit crazy

But we couldn’t talk him out of it no matter what we said. No matter what logical arguments about regret, about being shunned…hell, about being laughed at by girls he was trying go out with. He went ahead and got the tattoo.
And he owns that shit now.
I mean he’s super proud of it and just stares at us blankly when we try to talk to him about it. No matter what we say—or how many times we say it—he just smiles as if we’re talking a foreign language. He points out the good things; the notoriety, the semi-fame around the local and on and on.

There is nothing that we can say that will make him change his mind so now we’re looking the crazy fuckers for repeating the same noises, over and over. Now our peeps are kinda looking at us sideways because we can’t seem to get the with the idea that we’re done with nothing new to say.

That there’s nothing left to do but just be the guy’s friend.

Now re-read that above and instead of the tattoo, imagine I said “voted for Trump” and…
…just let it go.

Believe. Go. Do.

~TrevorZen