I have been.
Pulling away from the ropes that bound me
resisting being considered/mistaken
as one with the place,
the people, the land, the systems around me.
The culture, the details, not me.
The routine, the friendships, not me.
The shapes, the specifics, not me.
So anytime I felt the tendrils
of any vine nearby grip my arm,
hug my body, pull at my leg,
repulsion flared up in me,
and the pressure to run away
overpowered the call to stay.
Disgust at what I know,
contempt of the familiar.
And so I fain uprooted
again, again, and again,
each time sincere yet shortened farewells
lit up the prideful feeling in me of
"you are not me, and so I leave".
Dissatisfied repeatedly, that what I found was not me,
frustration that I could not make the world and me align,
Her places always "but"-able,
her people always flawed,
why did desire always lead me
to what looked shiny, but close-up dull?
Then gradually I came to see
what caused such endless chase.
The problems were not the objects,
'twere the eyes with which I gazed.
Twas not the people who were flawed,
the flaws were my own point of view,
for each object existent in this world
has a true path that cannot be askew.
For it Is, self-proven existence,
and thus contributes to the True.
The instinct I grew up with,
that which insists "not me", "not me",
somehow it knew that people, groups, and objects
are not where lies the worth to Be.
And yet the shine stoked my desire
and signalled a subtle hope
that in this new place, partner, or job
may lie the sought-for "goal":
That which is really my own.
That which sparked my joy.
Which reminded me of my purpose.
Ineffable, elusive spark.
But while I knew that in the matter
lies not the worth to Be,
I half-forgot that I myself
also inhabit a body.
A complex mass of tissues,
beliefs, thoughts, shapes, and skin.
They also were what I repelled
because I knew it was not me.
I forgot I live within which
shines the very spark I seek,
and I cannot lose it truly,
for it's the essence of me.
I have been very afraid
to dive into the depths of the world
of groups, places, jobs, people,
of chains that bound me to the details
to heavy rocks on the ocean floor.
That I would drown beneath the water
and forget the sun above.
But where I had been mistaken
were not that the details were not me,
for that was true,
but rather than within each rock, prize, and flesh
I haughtily pushed away
after losing sight of the spark that drew me there,
there also lives the same essential light
that inner me,
of which I had been unaware.
Sometimes this realization
blipped in my unconscious, then faded.
But gradually, as I attempt it,
my feeling for it becomes greater,
and my path a little straighter.
For I now suspect this mundane prison we inhabit,
that blinds us, weighs us, hurts us, baits us,
we entered of our own accord.
And here we can find other sparks
which twinkle up our own inner flame
with whom we can remember together
our inner Sun.
That we really are Light within,
and what we wish is to shine our Love.
Onto all that Is.
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