these stranger selves

this strange creature we live with; we call it ourselves
this grumbling reptile that slithers and crawls
this animate ursine that grumbles and crawls
hanging up phones and storming outside
feeling great impulse, across the divide

and the mind wonders why the body won't listen. the mind wonders why the body knows best, at times. the mind is terrific for wondering, and only that. the mind trembles at what it's sitting inside.

but this behavior is telling some truth, don't you think? two people standing in a room, needing each other's presence, despite what presuppositions may hold. two people, minds in bodies, but the bodies helm the minds at times.

it requires us to accept some things.

this jaded double-layer american independence, this modern self-suffage, makes us refuse to believe what our bodies are saying; these simple things we need. the basic requirements of the strange creatures we live alongside, caring for from a lens of intelligence that overgazes the forest and every tree.

shaking hands. the demon in the dark. personal space, an illusion. readiness far readier than the curtain would lead one to believe. camaraderie in purpose. and a thousand phrasal templates of behavior leading the blind:

clap clap clap! you need to leave. crazy times. you gonna make me pick it up?
rejected. you need some milk. don't come in here. what is that?! can we go home?

inhibitions of the mind cause us to walk the same ways at the same times when we could be running down different roads. could be, through modern day, riding in different cars. rigidity breeds at the extremes, and of course i live at the extremes.

but there's no space to flatten assumptions, no room to be any weirder than i've already been. no way to stop and acknowledge. no speed to cover a sin.

we're just waiting, in stranger spaces, with our stranger selves, and our familiar paces. and the things we say, confronting us, confounding us, be-comf'ting us.

this role is what i am. this self just walks around it.

and walking, walking, walking, with the step the self well knows. the step introduced to others. the step that comes and goes.

could i be needed? could i be right? could i be any stranger, disappearing into the night?

the isolation rumbles up from pit of stomach's back. it grows with attention, with attunified actions, with complacence to the pattern and rhythm to the beat.

you have to do things that the mind finds unnatural, hoping to steer the body toward greater light. the body will act to keep itself safest. the mind will fight to keep all on track.

are these organisms meant to be connected? how to interface the computer within my brain? never off, always on, always blitzing, just a pawn.

swooning, sweet song it sings, unable to imagine an organic synthesis. the mind will always be at odds with the body; the body is living in the terrifying real world.

the mind is subsidizing. the mind is subsuming.
the body is sublimating. the body is consuming.

the mind clings to the body and wrenches it about, knowing ever itself the wiser even with the body greater stout.

what we believe becomes our reality. how we behave displays it, though we may not behave how we'd like to believe.

how perilous. how quaint.

the body's lack of energy can be masked by the mind. the mind's lack of energy can be checked by the body.

but a third party steps back and observes: the soul, unresident, unhappily purged.

the soul, which only feels and knows, but does not think and does not show. the soul which buries, driving body and mind, driven down by both of them time after time. and before this beast connecting deepest secrets is the work of becoming, of realizing, through pain. the soul burgeons and brightens. the soul dies again and again.

we can name countless entities, and monkeys upon backs, but the fact remains that a tortured entity is unpleasant for all parties involved and concerned. the fact is that we're all odd and ill at ease for a reason; we're all struggling to understand how these pieces could possibly fit.

these strange creatures we live with - we call them ourselves, perhaps hoping that by owning them we'll come to know them. but turning our own capacity for compassion upon concomitant inhabitant of the mirror and match might prove constructive, even successful, in a way that supposatory integration may not.

sort of the opposite of dialectical mesh. observe someone else's projection of you, and see how that might fit on. be willing to view the world within what one is expected to do and without additional begging invitations. to improve, to iterate, to irritate. maybe it's all of those things, and none.

actions become procedural: hang up the phone once? call back twice. walk out, and watch the steps as they fall.

what does this creature need? what does their behavior provide us with?

a window. and we are curious about this creature. we are tender toward this creature. we want to know what this creature needs.

these stranger selves must come from somewhere, and they cannot so summarily be discarded. these stranger selves must become familiar to us, must be fed, must be learned, must be wed.

these stranger selves are charming, like a primate that seems to have an earnest quality. is there something so senseless about smiling?

think how much you could love yourself, if your self was a trembling, comfort-able rabbit. with squeaking nose and nubbling teeth and a tremendous talent for turning on its heel.

if your self was a child. if your self was an elderly person. if your self was a young adult. if yourself was anyone who came with the understanding that there are other, stranger selves in the world, and all change does not stop for this instant.

you know that, right? you know that as surely as you know yourself.

and so you must, if your mind will not be kind to your soul nor enlist your body in being so gracious, step outside of yourself. you must group what would so pleasingly be grouped. you must cherish what is so obviously pure and percolating in nuance.

you could be needed. you could be special. you could be someone, and you could be new.

your role a component, for your soul to walk into; a fetching outfit that surely suits you.

you could be what you need to be. hey, wow! but we all need you to be you, now.