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We've all got these trauma brains now, brains that developed with less love than we needed, crap food and violence. We've all got these short attention spans and the need to pull people close only to push them away when things get hard. It's that urge to run, that fear of trust, that uncomfortableness with nurturing love - addicted to the dysfunction and rejecting the cure. It takes a bravery to let it in, to allow the self to be loved by another. I think to let it be solid, lasting, good, I need to love me too and that's been so brutally hard. And they say you gotta have someone else love you first, so ain't that a vicious cycle? So, yeah, I've been bad. I pushed you away. I made up reasons for stuff you did and believed them, as if you ever could have had a mean intention, that was never you. So our breakup, my coldness, my spite... it's bad wiring I'm fighting. At least now I know, at least there's a chance for something better. So, I can say hand on heart I deserve this, that I have throughly earned your distain, but you wanna be my friend? Because I wanna learn how to be yours. If I help, if I'm kind I might start to like myself and that would be a start to something better.
The elf holds herself much as branches do and other things so natural. I suppose I had come to forget how stiff humans can be, as if they carry a fear the elves don't. Their kind moves as autumn leaves do, freely yet within the flow of creation, a serene purpose woven with a nobility and purpose. We stay still. Of course she knew of our presence long before we were aware of her, elves always do, for they are truly wild. We take a moment to let in the sacred spirit, to resonate with her, for she is bound only by nature's laws - not the sort for lesser animals - perhaps the highest kind. Which promises safety for the loving and danger for the dangerous.
I hardly notice the bow any longer, it's as if we have become one. There was a time I would never have ceded to carrying a weapon, yet love demands that you defend what you love, else what is it? What are we without it? I cannot fathom how the enemy feels, taking with cold and greedy cores, indifferent to our suffering as they build castles of gold and fertilise their trees with our bones.
A warrior must always have a core of love to be safe, to be one with mother nature and the spirits who guide us, otherwise why would she take sides? Why would she help? And so in my hands the wood of the bow is as one of my own fingers, the string as one of my own muscles and the arrows fly straight because my love is the same. I pray one day I may lay it down, to be at peace, and let my heart be all the weapon I need. Until then, this is how it is.
These painful memories, they're just the same as nightmares. They vanish when I'm awake, when I'm really right here in the present moment with you. Once I really open my eyes, let in daylight, they have no choice but to leave and I can let in all the wonderful things around me.
From the beech trees tumble golden leaves, even though each canopy appears so green. They come as if scattered by a happy child, surfing upon a gentle breeze. To walk through them is a joy, a nature given serenity. And in those moments, those living photographs, I am at peace.
There have been real villains and heroes of history, yet in everyday life aren't we a bit of both both? If the hero represents love and the villain represents indifference, aren't they both in us all? I know they're both in me. The real battle is how to be more hero and less villain, how to bring more healing and less hurt so we can care for ourselves and those we love, be happy and lead good lives.
When is it we feel our "venom" rise? When we feel threatened? That's natural. It's our primitive survival brain getting out of bed, taking over for a while. It comes when we are afraid, under pressure, unloved or simply scared. That's how we really live, isn't it? Isn't that why Venom is symbiotic and not parasitic? Because we evolved to have a survival mechanism and it's perfectly healthy in a society that doesn't trigger it all the time.
All we're really taking about is how fear and lack of support in our lives triggers our own primal brain, our survival instincts, causing us to feel more indifferent and less loving.
So perhaps from the ivory tower of the critic it's just a movie, but to those who feel the struggle of being pulled into indifference when we'd rather be loving and feel loved... this is a reality that hurts us.
The "Venom" is in us is simply a defence mechanism in a toxic culture. Why "venom"? Because that's the bite of a spider or snake, the same as the cold indifference that bites us every day and even then we're still fighting hard to be fully human. We're doing our best to limit that "reflex monster defence" instead of becoming monsters. It sucks that that's the best we can do, but it is what it is.
We should be asking why the audiences love Venom, looking for the deep psychological reasons and ask what it says about modern culture and what we humans really need to be healthy. Kids are smart, they know what helps their mental health and they know what hurts them.
Narcism comes of having a fragile ego, they build the walls of indifference and seek status to hide the vulnerable self, striking out, being aggressive. The truth is, if you are secure about who you are and truly love that person, your ego is so strong that you seek cooperation over power, and your self care and love is healthy. The greatest warrior, indeed perhaps the only one, we ever face is the self in that battle between doing the most loving thing and being the selfish primitive self. The narcissist losses that battle every day, always choosing to use their primitive "me first" instincts over the more highly evolved self controlled, empathic and giving self. So, what I'm saying Troy, is that narcism may appear to be a fabulous gift, but it will destroy the "you" you were born to be... poisoning your soul.
Wintry trees stand as ballet dancers poised to show the world their grace, strength showing in how they remain so still in the seasonal gusts. Now that the leaves have fallen, they are so proud, as if their silvery-brown skin was their glory all along. I lift my head into the wind, eyes open for this softly lit day. Cold is good if you are warm inside, just the same as we love ice in the summer time.
Legend says their hearts died in their chest cavities long ago, that they putrified and made a heavy slime about their lungs as thick as underworld tar. That's how they became killers and perhaps why. The witches of the north say their emptiness is their madness, that they take life over and over as if they may possess the hearts and souls, yet never so. To be healed someone pure has to love each of them, to reform their heart as if it was the finest of clay, then set it to beating with pure nature's essence. So until they find such a being to forgive all that they have done, to break the universal scales and set them free to begin anew, the killing goes on.
If one has a heart to plunder, to be the wrong sort of king, I suppose a castle is what you need. I suppose if you want so much more than any man or woman has a right to, then you need tall walls of stone... for your castle and your mind. I imagine these people are lonely behind such rocky towers, paranoid as they fill their world with weapons, each as deadly as the last sin they inflicted on the less powerful. How they preach, those greedy ones who sit and guzzle, taking whatever and whomever they please. Yes. I can see why they would need to live in a building such as that... grand and empty, dank with small windows and surrounded by their own filth. It's just perfect.
There is something about unmeasurable time that is a torture to mind, body and soul. It stretches you thin somehow, so unbearably thin. Perhaps it's because there is no love there, no hugs or kind smiles, no-one to tell you everything will be okay. And then there are the eyes of everyone here, alive and dead, as if they are so desperate for this nightmare to be over they try to sleep even when they are awake. They feel the need to take our freedom, that much is obvious. They are scared of us, yet it's more than that. I see disgust in the way their faces move, indifference in the little they say, grimly seeing out their time as guards before they may leave. At what cost to their souls too? To think you can wound another without the wound being on yourself too is foolishness of the worst sort. This life is but a magic mirror, giving back what you give out. And so I sit here, on this plastic chair, and let my eyes rest a while.
I ask my imagination for a bird so that she may sing and move her wings in the sunlight that warms her. I hear her song, so bright, as if it were all the colours I've been missing for so long. Before I can help it a small laugh escapes my lips; I see my mamma who would stop in the middle of any path to savour such music, no matter how humble the bird.
In you I see the chance for that kind of love they say doesn't exist anymore. The type that spans far longer than one lifetime. I want a love that's passion and determination, fire with earth, yet is also a serenity souls can dwell in forever. It's not the kind of love for mortals, lover, so come if you dare. It takes courage to walk into the light after a lifetime of semi-shadows; it takes the heart of a lion because no-one survives its loss. So forever or bust, let's go.