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There was a time I thought my obsession of you was love; it never was. For when people give freely of their love I am not obsessed, why would I be? Do we obsess over clean water when it is plentiful? Or when it is measured, when we fear its removal, fear thirst? So while you took up so much of my brain, it was a sign of ill health, that you took so much more than you gave. It was hard to see that, but it's true. So now I am with one who puts me at ease, who gives as freely as the mountain spring.
The humble dandelion is the gold amid the green, a little sunshine close to the earth, born to shine. It has a beauty equal to any other, with leaves to fill the salad bowl and seeds for the bellies of the birds. It is the clock of my childhood daydreams, the watercolour of long ago joy, as magical as any fairy wand.
The gate was open on one side, yet was so wide anything could pass. So despite their tallness and the strength of the metal, it was a simple stroll to the other side. Paul let his hand touch the ambient metal, no longer hot from the day nor cold from the soothing effect of evening air. It was as if it could vanish, as if the atoms themselves could choose to be free, to be something new.
Our front room had everything we ever wanted, a rug and our musical instruments. With more, however could we have fitted our friends in to sit and be so merry with us? We used to sit there, cross legged on the woollen fibres, the reds and blues becoming part of the music somehow. In a way, it all weaved together, the laughter, the melody and those late-summer hues.
Your greed will be a sword in your guts; the hand who twists it will be your own. Yet in each surge of pain know that it is you who are helped, for in the fire of shame and guilt exists the ashes of your birth, a death to bring a life, for an old you to pass and let a new you flourish. All I need do is love you, help, be kind... and the rest dear one... is in your hands. Should you ever feel able, pull the sword yourself, for you are the rock and the rescue you seek. None other can remove what you have inflicted to your soul.
My actions have brought you only good things, gifts of a human soul cracked open... and still you show cruelty, a cold indifference, born of some need for retribution based on the hue of my skin. Were I born with the skin of my father, I would be a sister; that I have the appearance of my mother I am to be "other," a "them." Perhaps you need help to comprehend that the gene for skin colour has no baring on any other, on my worth, or culpability for crimes of another generation. I help out of love for all humanity, to give a higher platform to all to leap from. Trauma populations come in all ethnicities, languages and faiths - it is right and proper to focus on their needs and give help. Yet the biggest problem we face is these false dichotomies, because they drain the mind as it considers so many divisions and the social importance of each, the fear closing off higher abilities. Willpower is a finite resource and these power struggles drain us, make us think in the primitive ways, lock us in to various "them" and "us" groupings. So I can tell you this - when you free your mind of such things, when you leave the arena of these dichotomies, you will be free to develop your intellect, creativity and empathy. We are human, with the same emotions and pains. The only way out is to love one another and look past these superficial markers. None can tell the content of the character by the skin colour, that is a story we tell with our deeds and... I'm here to help.
The dew is beading finer than any wedding dress, effortlessly following the curves of the earth. The green beneath shines through, rich dark grass upon this nurturing incline. Just as when it is made anew in wintry whiteness, I can turn to see the gentle imprints of my feet, whispering the direction of my journey.
The sailing boat blossomed right there on the ocean, with sails as pretty as any petals, bluish in compliment to the sky and waves. The rest was all as solid as any oak of the land, warm browns that reminded me of home and hearth, of those quiet family evenings when jokes rise and swirl as eddies in water. Her bows met the water with a regal dignity, creating waves of her own, choosing her path with each passing moment.
By mid-May the garden was a sea of white-puffed clocks, the wind whispering unmeasured time to the grass who existed every moment and no more - happy in that fraction of time we call "now." I would watch the seeds drift upon their natural parachutes, travelling without notion of place. Yet it was the way nature is, choreographed chaos, everything set in motion for creation to bloom.
It is when we love our enemy that they become our friends, and this is the death of war itself. When we see their children and feel the yearning to put food in their bellies and hear their laughter ring, infusing with the laugher of our own children, we make a lasting bond, a pact with love itself. This is when truth comes, and the silence is all the words we will ever need, for this is the intelligence of the heart, the language of the universe.
Listening to them out on the verandah, using their new words, they sound like we did all those years ago. Maybe that's how dialect happens, how when folks didn't travel so much we all sounded so different. It had a bonding effect though, a sort of linguistical marker of groups and friends. Maybe that's why I never tried to decode their slang, kinda seemed rude, as if I was listening to someone else's phone call. They would grin at those new words too, adopt a way of talking, new body language. They went from kids who were flung together by God and fate... to something akin to family. People called them gangs, but they see the wrong thing, prejudice does that. I saw kids who never knew what we called "family" decades ago, brought up by a system that never loved them, finding peace in one another. That's what nature does, it seeks a way to function out of nothing, like green foliage on desert dunes. So this slang, it's both healthy for them and its a symptom of the stuff we did wrong. The solution is to love them, be family to them, it always was.
Grumpy is when my inner dragon comes to play, it's something I'm working on controlling... but, the thing is, it's just there to protect me, as a friend. And it comes with the snarls and the barks and my job is to ensure it's not hurting those I love. I think we all have an inner dragon, its' just that some folks have never had to summon theirs and I'm happy that they have been so blessed... because once you have one, it guards and seeks potential danger, alert to the smallest of things, only sleeping when everything feels safe. So yes, my grumpiness is me, it's my pet dragon, but it sure would help a lot if things around me were calm.