occasionally, i don't know how to differentiate between what i want and what i need.
i often say things like "i need a slurpee". of course, i don't. i say "i need a new job". a little more valid, but still more desire-based than anything else.
one thing i honestly do need, however; i need a new heart.
every few years, i go through the same process, time to cleanse, time to purge, rebuild, learn from the past. so i strip some of the more profoundly base things from myself, tidy a few corners, take a mop to the floor, scour and disinfect and try to separate myself from the darker pieces of my incomprehensible nature.
and as i stand on precipice of my salvation, shiny and wet, the first thing i want to do with my cleanliness is defile it.
want is the wrong word, however. i am compelled, burdened with a tension and anxiety that has everything to do with being able to see so much of myself and so little of the things that protect me from that awareness. and, uncertain, shocked, i fall back and demand destruction from myself, demand something recognizable, familiar, and justified.
it often seems all i'm cabable of doing, all i was meant for, this soft, embracing carnage.
not that i can't build beautiful things. but then, i must break them,
break them so that i can mourn the pieces, so that i can find myself in the midst of a beautiful lament for something lost.
part of my fascination is simply that the energy of shattering is captivating, consuming, takes my breath and thought and pain and hope away in brilliant motion.
what remains is that the way i feel and express my sorrow over the loss
is the only thing
i have never been afraid to find
beautiful.
even now, in this, i am doing it again, writing a beautiful eulogy to my own life, before it is even over, knowing that i often need it to be this way, whether or not i prefer it thus.
so, in that tiny part in the back of my head that still does not hate, that hates not this world, nor myself, nor the God that created both, i launch one small, rediculous prayer into whatever worlds there may be besides this. and the words of the prayer are, unlike my arguments, unlike my explanations, unlike my justifications, terribly simple.
i pray for a new heart.
even if i am already too late, even if nobody will ever hear my words, even if there is no God capable of granting such an impossible request.
nobody has reason to listen to me... i have ignored and hated God, i have left my friends along the side of the road in my selfishness, i have pushed people away with empty rhetoric and self-pity that smacks of imbalance, of unfair perspective.
i'm so sorry for it all.
i can't write anymore.
if you pray, if you believe in God, or hope, or life, please lend your voice to my prayer... i haven't the vocal range i once managed, and i'm all too afraid that He can't hear me anymore.
i swear, i am not trying to be self-involved, and i know of the hypocrisy that is all to visible in the strands of my idealism. i would be afraid to pray for anything for anyone, because i fear it, because i don't often believe, because i would not want to hinder the honest prayers of the faithful with whatever contribution i might muster out of necessity. so i will understand if you deny my request and pray as you normally would. you have no reason to offer me anything that i can't offer you in return, and that includes hope. still, a beggar has no choice but to ask until someone throws a coin into his hat, lest he otherwise starve.
i'm so hungry.
