scared intimidated eyes that look down, wondering where my feet are taking me.  hoping they take me somewhere new and full of life.  the thing is i don’t want to see my feet.  i want to see the path and journey.  a very self aware mind-reader i am. and everyone tells me that i’m odd looking, talentless, hopeless, boring, and not worth the time.  yes, everyone says this, but their lips do not move; just their eyes squint a bit. and their heads tilt slightly, and their noses wrinkle just enough for me to hear that i am nothing.  they mean well, i know they do.  they keep me from being the anything, which apparently is my destiny.  perfection is non existent for me. my imperfections are perfect, however.  and i know this because i read minds and that’s what i hear, though those mouths don’t open and shut.  i read their minds. simply.

confusion is a state of mind that apparently loves and nurtures me.  but perhaps without it, i will never find myself between words and phrases and sentences and pages.  because that is where i want to be.  i want my pulse to beat under someone else’s fingertips.  i want to tell my story, which is her story, and his story, and our story.  perhaps i think too much about nothing at all, but the nothing at all is still never enough.  whether empty or full, my soul still craves more–even less–at times.  perhaps i will be happiest when my soul is empty.  when i see it spread out flatly on parchment and i can reach down and touch it and motion my hand in it like warm lake waters.  or when i can use my soul on the paper as a life saver to keep me from drowning when my physical soul is too full.  that’s when i will be happiest.  and what will make me happier than the happiest is to have others see their soul along side mine and we all can stand, sit, or lie empty, spent and satisfied because every part of our being is there, glowing on the page.

i know this is supposed to be a self portrait, but it’s hard to paint an accurate picture because i have yet to fully see myself.  just my feet and the eyes of others that tell me without a word (because i am a mind reader) that unless i do look up into a mirror, see myself, hear myself, and listen to myself,  i will never know my own unique beauty.  friend i am, son i am, brother i am, learner i am, teacher i am, writer i am (not) and until i can UN-parenthetically be a writer, no self portrait of me–of this soul–will ever exist.  is this depressing.?  most likely.  but it is also liberating because without this awareness i have no push.

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