The Further I Strayed From Who I Was, The Closer I Got To Who I’m Meant To Be

The winter always steals the warmth from my hands; the blood flows upstream toward my heart and away from my delicate instruments. The cold transcends my layers of skin, my soul and settles in my bones – making me all too aware of my delicate humanity, my temporary existence.

My hands shake as they cradle a cup of black coffee; the steam slowly rising from the ominous liquid, moving sensually like a serpent and then vanishing with the wind all together.

My eyes dance across the blank pages in front of me, the notebook moving awkwardly in the wind across the table. With each gust it stutter steps away from me and I again, do not have the heart to chase the pages that need to be filled with the chaos in my head. I have not written in months for placing words on paper have become so difficult since I abandoned the half of myself that could allow such a release of emotion to flow so beautifully from within on to a medium to let the world know the fullness I was feeling in my heart. I think in run-on sentences, I chase adrenaline to avoid the stillness writing demands from me.

My diction has become rusty, my words no longer sophisticated and grandiose. The feeble words I have left are simplistic and raw, no longer pretentious or guarded.

Each piece of art whether it is small, large, colorful, black and white, morbid, or whimsical is a reflection of a piece of someone’s soul. And those humans sent from above talented enough to translate our thoughts and feelings to our skin work tirelessly to decorate every genre of human that could possibly exist. Priests could not fathom the confessionals that happen inside an artist’s room; the cathartic experience of speaking freely, while someone listens is such a rarity nowadays.

The further I strayed from who I was, brought me closer to who I am. My soul calloused and scarred but never broken from the weight the world kindly asks me to bear. I fear I nod and smile too often, conceding to demands rather than making me own, but when I speak with certainty and my voice no longer shakes in fear of judgment – I tend to surprise myself. My inner self is consistently taken aback by the skin and bones that has adopted an entirely new persona.

I make a conscious effort to turn my face toward the sun; I play my music a little louder these days. I’ve shaken the shackles that kept me blind for too many months. I’ve begun to live my life beyond the pages of a notebook.

I’ve fallen in love with the way color looks on skin, and the strength it takes to bear a black and white shield. The sparkle in a pair of brown eyes and a deep throated laugh that is just as intoxicating as a cigarette smoke that fills the local bars.

The flavor of a freshly poured beer on my tongue, the goose bumps that dance across my skin and the bass from the speakers shakes my sternum; the kind of tension that robs me of my breath right before a kiss, the way touch feels when it comes from the right person.

I could spend a lifetime chasing those drunken moments of passion, that kind of human connection that is so dangerously addictive. My only regret is that I did not give up on that notebook earlier.