death of an apocalypse

i swallow you down and break you up into your most basic elements so i may then use those materials...


this prayer has been going through my head for a few days now. actually, i've lain awake for hours trying to remember even the first dozen words or so. i couldn't even remember the phrase "most basic elements" because of how clouded my mind has been lately.

there's been so much fear lately, so much confusion and frustration, heartsick agony and hopelessness. i've been struggling to find how to break up fear into even more basic elements, but fear is a basic emotion and cannot be disassembled any further. because oh, i've tried.

my lovely and funkalicious beauty and truth fans, i might've been ready for a relationship, but i don't know that i was truly ready to be vulnerable. of all i've seen of successful pairings of people, none of them have sat down and told me that love is something that goes beyond risk, that goes beyond that life-or-death decision to stand there with your arms down and just let the shrapnel hit you full in the torso. that choice to stand there and smile and let him stab you in the gut one more time, over and over.

and over.

don't forget to smile. and say 'thank you.'

have you ever been so afraid you've actually been paralyzed? i mean, literary talent that i am, i know i've talked about being paralyzed by fear, but in all honesty i've never actually been truly paralyzed. i've heard the blood rushing in my ears before, and there are countless times i've had the fight-or-flight response kick in. i've also been so mortally frightened that i was immediately kicked so far beyond fear that i found myself in a calm sort of focus, knowing that whatever happened in the next thirty seconds could not be prevented and i'd already accepted the fact of my own mortality.

but i've never been paralyzed by fear. at least, that is, until the other night. i couldn't move. and although it was because i was afraid of *m*, it wasn't *m* i think i was truly fearing. it was vulnerability. i feared being the supplicant, because i'm so proud. i feared the feeling of begging, because i'm too proud. i feared yielding and capitulating one more time, because i'm too paranoid and defensive to even remotely resemble a doormat.

i haven't mastered my inner calm, my core of confidence that cannot be shattered. i don't have the authority in my Self to know --truly know-- that compassion isn't flawed by pride. it isn't about who's right or wrong, who was wronged first or hurts deepest. it's about who's loving, compassionate, and merciful enough to start healing, about who is willing enough and humble enough to honor the Funk within another. because in honoring the Divine Wow within another, you honor the Supreme Funk within yourself. it's not about making your point, about driving it home until its made...until you win. it's about making peace.

and that's oh so hard to do when you're afraid and hurting, and you know that to take down your defenses is to be shredded to pieces all over again. i guess love is walking through the firing line.