rust, and other accruals

Chapter 01: a night in the dark
Chapter 02: and the very next day

if the point of a human life is to feel, and to aid others in their journey to feeling, then i have more or less acceded the goal. i have far exceeded my fair share, with only the barest scratch into surface proving that i was even there.

to be loved is to be changed, yes, but even loving itself - even that irrevocable, irreconcilable grip at your throat - changes you. erodes you. reshapes the very purpose of your bones, with inescapable violence. or maybe i'm just susceptible.

prone to emotions i never knew i had, never allowed myself.

prone to feeling.

so it's very convenient, then, to make that my point.

it's as plain as the tears on my face, the knot in my chest.

don't you see?

i loved you so much i wanted to become you.

to wear what you wear, to go where you go, to do what you do.

i didn't just want to be a part of things. i wanted to feel as others had felt, dream as others had dreamed.

i wanted to experience people as a person would, because i'd never had the chance to be one, myself.

and i, bleeding at my seams, have gained nothing by being you, if the point of a human life is to be one's own.

prone to being so vulnerably human.

how shall i feel my own heart?

in that place, my cheeks covered in starshine
in that place, i could imagine myself as you see me

as i boarded the car that took me down
bought the suspenders that held me up
and wrangled the horn, air spinning light

the sheer obviousness, the manifest ease, with which i changed myself
(which is to say, with a tremendous and heartrending difficulty)
that i should stand here today intent to educate and share

brought to tears by my own smile
no one did this but me
except god, who passed it through
and god is other people

no one did it for me
and i did not do it for them
except for myself
and i am the love of other people

in that place - my heart - my eyelights aglitter
in that place - your mind - i'm everything we dreamed me to be.