religion

The other night, I was engaged in a conversation with a bunch of theology majors from different colleges. Two of them were atheists of the most scientific kind, and the third was a devout christian, with a firm belief in something beyond what is proven.

I really don’t know much about any religion other than Catholicism, and I always used to have this fear of atheism because I believed it was terrifying to live my life with the idea that once it was over it was finished for good. That when I died, I would lay in the ground with my eyes closed, feeling more still than the wind on the day of a funeral. I was afraid to admit that one day I would no longer have the control of my limbs, I was afraid to admit that I would decompose and become the earth in a way that was more concrete and scientific instead of abstract and beautiful.

But the way that one person in the conversation put it was enough to question my thoughts.

“For me,” he said “for me, atheism means to live this life to the fullest. I think that religion causes people to spend too much time imagining what happens next, and they therefore get too caught up in acting a certain way, and they do not live up to their fullest potential. So I think it is better to live my life in this stage, without any idea about what could be beyond it.”

What a way to think! Really, it isn’t at all what I imagined atheism to be. Living this life to the fullest, with no ideas about the rich or empty possibilities of the great beyond.

But I do not think I can live my life this way. It’s a monumental idea to me, and I absolutely want to live life in the fullest way possible, and I firmly wish to do so in a way which only I believe is the best. I refuse to get caught up in the strains of acting a certain way for my religion.

But I don’t think I can let go of the idea of the great beyond. The truth is, I don’t know what’s out there. I don’t know how many gods look down on me, I don’t know what kind of image I’m made in, I don’t know anything about why nature acts the way it does. I don’t know if I can believe in anything specific, in a vengeful God, in a bunch of humanistic creatures that somehow have risen to enough power to keep me enthralled and obedient.

All i know is that every day the sun sinks to a certain level in the sky, and it bathes the buildings and the trees in a very specific shade of orange that makes my eyes feel so green they just might sink right into the grass. And even though this happens every single day of the year, I only look out the window on certain days. And all I know is that sometimes I can pick a leaf out of a tree  and stare at it for the longest time, trying to pick apart the pieces with my mind, to distinguish the difference between what flows through its veins and my own. And sometimes I cry like the rain. And sometimes i eat an ice cream cone in the summertime, and it hurts because the ice cream is cold on my teeth. But not always. Sometimes I hear a song that reminds me of my dad, and I smile at what he will say when I tell him. And it takes every bit of strength I have to remember that I can’t tell him, that when I am finally able to tell him things again, I might not remember to tell him about this song. Sometimes memories are more beautiful than painful. Sometimes it makes me smile to remember what it feels like to hold someone’s hand. But what really hurts is when I have to label the thought, when I have to put it back into my memory.

Sometimes I poison my body and sometimes i poison my mind. And I know it is all part of the game, but sometimes I just can’t believe that all the things to have faith in can be explained. Sometimes I like to close my eyes and watch elephants cross the African savannah, and when I open them, I have this brief feeling of happiness and solitude because I know that someday I won’t have to close my eyes anymore.

I want to feel warmth from a church. or a synagogue, or any place of worship, really I do. But I don’t think that will ever be me. I want to find peace in the grass and in the clouds and in the leaves of the trees, because somehow I know when I look around and see that there are a million other things that breathe, somehow I already feel in the blood rushing to my ears

that

there is something out there and I want to spend my entire life

in this go around

I want to spend my entire life

trying to find it.

This morning I found myself
in a meadow which was
undisturbed by anything around it,
and I discovered that somehow I was
everything in it
I was what made the meadow move.

I was the grass,
and I was the tree bark,
and I was the wispy white clouds
that floated as if they had never touched
the ground before
and had never wanted to.

I think it's because the world is one big
rotation. Meaning that the world
is one big circulation of blood flow
and the spirit which puts these words
onto the paper is always continuously taken
and given back to something new.

Sometimes when someone gets a heart transplant
the body rejects the new organ and there is nothing
to do except accept because there isn't anything you can
do about it.
that's how I feel about my spirit because I know
that when I am older
and have lived my life long enough to realize
that big ideas are only big until the
world looms big enough to take them
my spirit will flow away like
the breeze that rushes between my fingertips.
and it will pool like the rainbow of oil in a puddle of water
in something which has not yet had a chance
and I will lose a little each time
each time I move on.

one day I will be the trees
and one day I will be the grass
and the breeze will rustle through my veins
like it was made to be only there
and though I will have experienced what it feels like
to have someone kiss me on my human shoulders
I will only remember what it feels like
to have the sunshine kiss my
leaves, like it was made
to be there.

Addict

Sometimes I don’t

feel like I am myself

unless I take something to

the extreme.

The other night I

sat on my bed and

used my fingertips to

search for

drug addiction.

Heroin and crystal meth.

I was so interested,

I was addicted

to the knowledge,

I learned that in order to

become addicted to heroin

you have to see life in a way

that most people don’t

I learned that in order to

become addicted to crystal meth

you have to breathe life in a way

that most people don’t

and I learned that in order to

throw your life to the wolves

that will help you escape reality

you have to let

the needle or

the pipe

or the

a n y t h i n g

kiss your body with tenderness

just one time.

When you are addicted

to heroin

it’s funny because

you can stare at your shoe for

eight hours

and you can let your body

slowly fold itself in half

mimicking the action

a normal person would do with

agony

and it is nothing because

you feel like you have just

sunk into a warm bath.

and stars with smiles that warm you

are swimming through your

veins and they

stroke your blood stream

with a tenderness that is

the agony of folding yourself in half

when it leaves you.

When you are addicted

to crystal meth

it’s funny because

your laughter can become

your tears more quickly than

it takes you to blink

when you’re laughing so hard

you cry.

it’s a poison,

a real-life poison that is made

through human hands by

mixing already poisonous

things together until they

turn into lips that

speak of the

kiss of death.

I watched a documentary

that showed a woman

who needed so badly

to escape from her reality

she was not afraid

to jeopardize her

return to it.

She was such a

beautiful disaster,

walking around with

half a mind to put on

her shoes

and the other half to

take them off again.

She twitched like a

sick mental patient

and she was not afraid to

scratch her fingers until they

were bleeding

crying with red to

signify a stop

sign.

I’m still on my antibiotics

she said

gripping the air with a

tightness I have only seen from

people who are

about to turn

into stone.

I know I will never do heroin

or meth

or even want to be somewhere

where I am around it.

But I just,

i JUST

want to take that woman’s

hands and

hold them as tightly as

I know she would

hold mine

and I want to scream

in her ears

that I will never do

meth because I will

never be as weak

as weak as she must be.

But it’s just

it’s JUST that

I am not less weak than

she is and

oh my god it’s just

those wolves

that scare me.